Storm Day Skiing

It was not like the classic storm days of Alpine Meadows past, but those days are never coming back. You might remember those days when Roundhouse was the top of the mountain, and almost nobody showed up. You did not have to worry about what was going to be closed over at the other mountain. But now, post merger, if Summit is closed at Alpine, it’s a pretty good bet that much of the upper mountain at OV will also be closed…and that means Alpine gets a bit overloaded. But it’s the new normal, so here we are.

The snow was just getting going as the lifts rolled this morning. So the first few laps were on spring snow – with Roundhouse, TLC, Sherwood and Kangaroo keeping lines just bearable. Then things got super sticky with wet new snow…and a lightning hold reduced all operations at both mountains to just Roundhouse and Kangaroo. The lines got long and that was our cue to go in for an extra early lunch.

The patience paid off. The lightning holds were lifted and the snow got a bit drier. By mid-afternoon, there was about 3 inches of new snow, and the skiing kept getting better and better. I put in 17 laps on Roundhouse before calling it a day. The best skiing was where other people were not skiing. I can’t really give details about my secret stashes, or they won’t be there next time. I will say that Yellow chairline was getting really good around 2 o’clock, and then Yellow chair opened, and a lot of other people caught on to that.

Taking a quick look at the satellite image, it looks like Alpine should still pick up snow until at least 8 pm tonight. So there should be a little bit of an overnight reset. There’s also Summit, Scott and Lakeview that did not open at all today…or none of the upper mountain opened at OV, which might be the netter call for tomorrow.

One bugaboo is that the winds may continue to be a problem tomorrow, with the northeast wind blowing, possibly above 50mph. That will likely be enough to put Summit on windhold, at least for the morning hours. Hopefully that won’t happen.