Word Of The Day: Woo Hoo

There was a lot of hooting’ and hollerin’ today. Four to 8 inches of new white fluff fell overnight at Alpine Meadows and it was total hero snow. No matter what lift you were riding you were bound to be having a lot of fun, provided you were dressed for some bitter cold. We heard “woo hoo” coming from Summit, Roundhouse and Scott this morning. There were probably some coming from Hotter Wheels as well, we just never rode it today as I was ready to see some other parts of the mountain.

Most of the small crowd that was at the mountain came for Summit, which has not been open for several days now. There was a pretty good lineup by 8:30am, so we chose some other alternatives, and mostly stuck with that as the visibility at Summit was less than spectacular.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Another 5-7 inches or so fell as the day carried on, making this storm another over-performer. That seems to be a theme for December, as this storm was about double what was forecast. The storm did bring a lot of wind, with Summit running near it’s wind tolerance most of the day. That said most of the snow still rode very well. Protected areas like Gentian Gully and most of the Yellow zone were phenomenal. Summer Road, Ridge and Bobby’s got hammered by the wind, leading to “whoop de doos” instead of “woo hoos.”

Although more people continued to arrive throughout the day, it was not all that bad. The upper lots did fill, not including White Wolf. Some cars parked at Deer Park, but not many. That would be the result of the blackout week for Base passes. This would be the time to note that there were staff out today watching for scofflaws at some lifts. Today I was happy to have the full pass!

This storm is winding down, leading to partly cloudy skies and cooler temperatures for Thursday and then some bluebird days going into the new year. Currently there is one more good sized storm in the models. Some of the other ski blogs around here have been hyping a storm “even bigger than the last one”. Most of the model solutions bring in a fairly typical Gulf Of Alaska system Monday night into Tuesday, bringing the potential for 2-3 feet of new snow by Wednesday.

A couple of model runs have shown this system tapping into an atmospheric river. We have to be careful what we wish for, as those same runs keep the low in southern Oregon. That would put Tahoe on the southern edge of the firehose, without cold air support. We don’t need a rain on snow event, especially with an atypically large low elevation snow pack.

It also looks more likely that we slip into a drier pattern by mid-January.  The weather “dipole” has become all too common for the US over the last few years. For much of December, we’ve been under the influence of the trough or “polar vortex” phase, while the eastern part of the US is locked into a dryer and warmer ridge pattern. If we get the dry pattern, hopefully it will be relatively short.

The PT Operations blog mentioned yesterday that they are prepping Sherwood for tomorrow, Dec 30th. That would be a ton ‘o fun to hit Sherwood with all of this new snow before the sun has a chance to bake it. Hopefully Siberia or something equally exciting will open over the hill to keep the crowds balanced out. Update: Today’s Operations Blog now pushes Sherwood out until Saturday…ugh.

We noticed a little tribute to long time Alpine Meadows ski instructor Chip Lambert this morning. I’ve never noticed the sign for “Chip’s Challenge” at any other time. It’s possible that I missed it last season as the Tiegel Chutes weren’t so attractive last season in a low snow year, not to mention the sign would have been much higher. You deserve a run named for you Chip!