The warnings were out that this could be a very crowded weekend. We mentioned it earlier this week and the official PT blog warned of large crowds for the MLK Weekend yesterday. Several of my friends opted out for the day, but I was curious to see how the day turned out. I also had an invitation to ski with Grace and Ada, and they are a lot of fun. (Yes, my wife was aware.) The expected crowds did not materialize.
As it turns out there’s still a lot of people out there that have Base passes that are blacked out for the weekend. Without any new snow in more than two weeks, fewer people were willing to pony up for day tickets than during the Christmas holiday blackout period.
Consequently, the parking lots did not fill at Alpine Meadows today. I’m not even sure that the upper lots filled, as there seemed to be plenty of parking along Chalet Road when I left this afternoon. I also never stood in much of a line today. I never saw a full corral at any of the operating lifts. So there you go, the crowds were a no show today.
Unfortunately the sun was also pretty much a no show today. The sun was there, but a fairly solid deck of high clouds moved in this morning, dimming things just enough that things did not soften very well. I don’t believe my skis left the groomed terrain once today, which is unusual for me. I’m usually willing to give it a go in some of the sunnier locations like Tower 19, God’s Knob or Standard Run. Edit: I now remember I did enter D7 today and found it uber firm with flat light, immediately traversing out to Wolverine.
The groomed runs skied great for most of the morning, and it was easy to find the lesser used runs and feel like it was another mid-week day at Alpine Meadows. Alpine Bowl, Sunspot, Werners and Dance Floor are not “lesser used runs.” You take it from there.
With not a care about crowds, we brazenly took a lunch break at 11:55am. The Sun Deck was very crowded at that time. My little skier friends reported that the breadsticks accompanying their soup were slightly stale. First world problems, especially with a tsunami affecting several areas of the world today.
After lunch, we headed to Sherwood, hoping for an afternoon thaw. The cloud deck had intensified, Sherwood only provided shaved ice instead of yesterday’s lovely corn. It certainly wasn’t bad, as we did 4 laps there before checking out Bobby’s over at Scott. Shaved ice there too, making me feel fortunate to be on skis with edges today.
Hopefully we will see a bit more sun for tomorrow. By Monday, a cutoff low will slip under the ridge, bringing a slight chance of showers, mostly south of Lake Tahoe. The ridge that has been blocking storms for the last two weeks looks like it might pull back to the west just a bit later in the week, increasing the possibility of an inside slider or two. The models are still hinting at a pattern change toward the end of the month.