Every day seems slightly more busy at Alpine Meadows as we approach Christmas. So far it’s tolerable since we started out with some fantastic opening conditions. Without any major new terrain expansions announced today, skiers and riders seemed to even out between the Alpine Meadows and Olympic Valley bases. That meant that for the bulk of the morning, you probably had to stand in a line somewhere. Today we stood in full corrals at Roundhouse, Hotter Wheels, Scott, Meadow and Subway. I never went to Summit today as the winds were howling and it was my intention to ski with my 4 year old niece.
The groomed slopes also were feeling a bit more crowded today, especially in the area of Rock Garden and Weasel. It would be great to see more of the mountain groomed during the busy season. The terrain that is being groomed is getting pretty beat up by mid-afternoon. The terrain that is not groomed is growing bumps that get larger each day.
Unfortunately there is a shortage of available workers. The housing situation in the Tahoe area is beyond critical saturation level, making it difficult to find employees to do anything. There is no shortage of people skiing and riding at any of the Tahoe ski areas, so the customers are here. Hopefully all of the tourist industry is taking a hard look at the critical need for employee housing.
I wouldn’t expect that we will see either Lakeview or Sherwood operating until we get past this next set of storms. Just doing a tour today, there didn’t seem to be much evidence of prep work for those lifts yet and the next round of snow will bury any work done now. The best bet is to arrive early and enjoy some of the relatively quiet parts of the mountain that are less traveled.
Speaking of arriving early, there’s a handy new feature on the PT app that gives you some ideas about parking availability. In previous years, you needed to either locate the Tweets hidden in the PT app or just review the Twitter feed for Mountain Ops to determine which lots were full. Open the app, tap “More” in the bottom right corner, then select Parking from the list. The gauges are clear and easy to read. The White Wolf lot is not included for Alpine Meadows, or it is likely included in the “Alpine Upper Lots”. From just taking a couple of quick looks, it seems to be updated reasonably well each morning. Once people start leaving, it is not updated. At 3:20 this afternoon, it still indicates that lots are still full. They are not. Seasoned Alpine Meadows patrons know you can usually start finding spots around 12:30 on busy days.
There’s More Snow On The Way
Looking just briefly at the models, tomorrow is looking like our last fair weather day for quite some time. There will still be some high clouds and strong winds as the next storm moves closer on Monday. By late Monday, the snow returns. The point forecast puts about 12-18 inches of snow on the ground into Wednesday. Much of that may fall as rain or snain at lake level. The snow level on Wednesday is expected to be right around the base elevation of Alpine Meadows. It’s going to be base builder snow and not necessarily “amazing powder day” snow.
Snow levels remain above 6000 feet as the bigger storm moves in Thursday. The models are still seeing the potential for 3-5 feet of snow. Once the front moves through late Thursday, snow levels should crash back below lake level. There will almost certainly be travel headaches.
As of now, the coldest storm is still on tap for Christmas eve into Christmas Day. That’s the kind of Christmas present we like. We’ll have to keep looking at the models through the week to see how that develops. Beyond the Christmas Day storm, the models start to diverge. Some of the runs are starting to show a drier pattern for the second week of the holiday. The GEFS ensemble run from this afternoon shows no major storms, but does not completely eliminate all snow. We’re certainly off to a good start…
Snain..!