Skip to content

Bonus Season Begins With A Winter Whimper

Well the first thing to say here is that we are skiing midweek at Alpine Meadows, in late April, of a minimal snowfall winter. Lesser COO’s of SVAM would have said “We have 12 lifts open at Squaw, let’s close Alpine.” So the fact that something different happened this year puts a big smile on our faces. Looking back, I am guessing that the same might have happened last year, had there not been the mid-March COVID stoppage.

The storm came in with a whimper, barely leaving measurable snow either Saturday or Sunday. Then during the overnight hours, that last wave finally made it onshore and over the crest, dropping 4-6 inches of snow that was probably pretty light. But once that big fireball in the sky started doing it’s thing at 6:07AM this morning, pristine powder turned into more of a tofu consistency. Still, quite a crowd came to ski it, weird, since a dozen lifts were open over the hill, and only Summit at Alpine Meadows.

Low angle pow on recently groomed terrain was the $$ spot for the early birds

So given a decent sized midweek crowd and that burning sun, the half life of the fresh snow was somewhere around 15 minutes. Normally you can get in 5 to 6 laps per hour on Summit midweek. Today, 6 laps took two hours, which tests my patience. This is why I basically never ski KT-22, Shirley Lake or Gold Coast – or Summit on a busy day for that matter. Still I had a few really great turns, mixed with a few where I had to beg forgiveness from my knees. Northfacing terrain with minimal moguls was certainly the place to be this morning.

The Face was not an ideal location to be this morning.

Looking ahead at the weather, the models show nothing but clear skies over the next two weeks. By Friday, Alpine Meadows will see temperatures near the mid-60’s, which will surely discount any additional base brought by this little stormlet. Hopefully we will get in a couple of solid freeze thaw cycles to get back to the consistent corn skiing we have enjoyed over the last couple of weeks. Therein lies the rub with spring pow days…

On a personal note, today marks day 154 of the season for Alpine Meadows and myself. This is my new personal best, and we’re not done yet. Thanks Ron Cohen and everyone else at SVAM has kept this place going and going. We all appreciate it!

5 thoughts on “Bonus Season Begins With A Winter Whimper”

  1. Looks beautiful!

    I am crying May Day! May Day! re: The B2B Gondola.

    They paved paradise and put up a gondola, with a pink logo, a long que and a swinging espresso shop.
    Don’t it always seem to go? That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone! They paved paradise put up a gondola!! Shooo Bop Bop Bop!
    Adapted from Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell March 1970

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.