It’s really true. There’s no denying that the snow is going fast. On one hand, the daytime high only reached 67° today – on the other hand the nighttime low was only 43°. Whole new areas of rocks and dirt appeared today. Cool sneaker lines we found yesterday were melted out today. Today also offered some impromptu pond skimming fun.
As predicted, today was crowded, very crowded. The small corral at Summit remained full just about all day, with solid line control in place. At times, the lines flowed well outside of the RFID gates, causing staff to redlight the gates while things cleared out. With less than 5 hours to ski and ride, many chose to avoid the line at Summit with long hikes to High Yellow and Keyhole. Upper Beaver closed early due to the wet slide potential.
Many people also headed to Roundhouse, where there was no line control…not even a corral. It still flowed much faster than the Summit line. That put A LOT of people onto the lower mountain. Werner’s, Dance Floor and Charity had freeway like traffic. Skiers & boarders taking direct lines like Sympathy and Lower Sympathy were forced to play frequent games of Frogger. At one point today I stopped and counted 23 people pass me in less than 30 seconds off piste on Lower Sympathy. Yup, it was crowded, Squaw Valley crowded.
I felt bad for families with small children and beginning skiers and boarders. Alpine Meadows official site really did not do much to warn them that terrain was limited and not necessarily appropriate for beginners. I talked to a few that assumed the whole mountain was still open. They should read Unofficial Alpine more often. I gave out some stickers today 🙂
Alpine did deal with the issue of too many people for the Sun Deck BBQ today. In the past, extremely long lines have formed for the only food service available. The Meadows Cafe expanded offerings today to include some chicken strips and fries. Tomorrow will likely be a bit more mellow with the de rigueur Sun Deck potlucks and tailgate BBQs.
Yes it was crowded both in lift lines and on the main groomers today. Tomorrow will likely be the same. Still, it’s closing day at Alpine Meadows in a season that is ending too soon for some of us. See you out there tomorrow!
They should put out a donation jar for alpine bowl chair. If ABC was open,there would be no lines, no high speed skiers at the bottom. No hiking over dirt from weasel. All would be happy if the chair was open.