There were a lot of questions about exactly how things might turn out today. With high winds in the forecast, it seemed doubtful that anything would open. If some lifts did roll, would it be better to go early and get fresh tracks with less snow, or wait til later and get potentially deeper snow, but no freshies? As it turned out, only the early birds got the worm today.
At 8:35, when we pulled into the Alpine Meadows lot, there were only about a dozen cars in Lot One. It looked like it just might be a classic midweek powder day, and a potential for free refills with so few people on the mountain. As we loaded up Roundhouse, heading for today’s top of the mountain, I noted that visibility was pretty much not happening this morning. There were a few hoots and hollers on the mountain, and not much in the way of scraping sounds, with around 4-6 inches of new snow. Since everyone else seemed to take Werners, we chose Rock Garden. While the tracks were fresh, it was vertigo inspiring, and it’s been months since we’ve skied powder.
We headed to TLC, and found visibility much better. It was good enough to take out my phone and see the Tweet announcing that lifts at Palisades were closing and advising people to go to Alpine. We knew the peaceful vibe of midweek would soon be gone.
Weasel offered much more consistent snow depths and visibility that was at least 50% better. Sure, there’s not a ton of pitch, hence the easy meadow skipping morning. After 5 runs, my buff was wet enough that breathing was difficult and the wind driven snow had managed to find it’s way to every exposed nook and cranny. We mistakenly took a quick warm up break, and then found TLC had gone on windhold. Looking at the increasing winds reported at Summit, we knew it wouldn’t be long before Roundhouse went on hold too.
As of this afternoon, Big Carpet and the shuttle are the only lifts running between the two mountains. Tomorrow should be better. The good news is that winds should allow upper mountains to open at both mountains. The bad news is that local schools are on spring break, as well as some other regional schools. There was some serious traffic inbound this morning on 80, from both directions. There is a lot of pent up demand from people that want one more powder day. Also…newly minted Ikon passes for next season now work at Alpine and the other mountain for the rest of this season. I would bet that the upper lots at Alpine will be full or close to full tomorrow.
The Remote Data site shows about 8 inches of new snow has fallen at the base area so far, which is more likely a foot mid mountain. The upper mountain will likely be around the forecast amount of 18 inches by the time this first storm winds up.
Morning edit: That may have been overly optimistic. The official reports say 9” which is what the remote sensor shows for the base area.
At least two more storms are in the forecast by Sunday. The first moves in Wednesday evening into Thursday and the second is here for the weekend. Looking at the last couple of runs for the GFS, we should see three feet or more of new snow by Sunday. That actually puts us into game changer status, with a potential later closing date for Summit. We will have to wait and see…unlikely at best.