Reflections On The 21-22 Season

I can’t believe it’s already over, the Alpine Meadows 21-22 ski season. It started late and ended early. According to the app, I skied 104 days at Alpine Meadows this season, versus 156 last season. The late start had everything to due with some wacky weather patterns. The early finish is still up for debate. What about the rest of the season?

The Weather

The relentless storms of December started us off with a reasonable snowpack and got the entire mountain open. Sure, it took some time for mountain ops and patrol to deal with 17.5 feet of new snow, but once they did, the entire mountain was skiing fantastic due to consistently cold temperatures. Having three dry months after that was not a powder hounds’ dream, but there are some positive points. There were fewer powder stampedes, shorter lift lines, and conditions that were really quite consistent. For myself, it gave me more of an opportunity to explore more of the mountain and focus on the total experience of skiing with friends every day.

The Grooming

We have said it over and over here this season. We were treated to stellar grooming and snow management this season at Alpine Meadows. That was really important when we could go for weeks at a time without any new snow. I mention snow management here, because grooming is not just leaving fresh corduroy tracks for our enjoyment. It’s about looking for places that are getting a little thin, and finding the new snow somewhere else to refill those areas. Most of the time, it’s a matter of pushing a lot of snow back uphill, after we have been pushing it downhill with our fat skis and snowboards acting like mini plows. Kudos to that team.

Lift-Ops

We had it good this season at Alpine Meadows. It took some time and creativity, but Alpine Meadows managed to keep the lifts rolling this season. Around the country, many ski areas had extreme difficulties hiring staff for the season. During the pandemic, “work from home” became a norm. Every last bit of affordable housing within commute distance of a ski area has been sold and resold, driving up both buying prices and rent to the point where workers can’t afford to live within commute distance. That resulted in some areas keeping some lifts idle for long periods, even the entire season.

Somehow Alpine Meadows managed to get past that and found the staff to keep lifts rolling, with few exceptions. We both applaud and appreciate the effort. Special thanks to every liftee that takes the time to get to know those of us that are there every day, and those that love the mountain enough to sport a “Don’t Call Me Palisades” sticker on their personal gear, or wear an “I ❤️ Alpine” button.

Melanie & The Treats Crew

Melanie and the crew at Treats are a vital part of the Alpine Meadows experience for many of us. I brought sack lunches to work during my entire 33 years of public school teaching. In retirement, it’s huge thing to never have to pack a sack lunch again. I have three or four things I’ll order for lunch, and every employee knows what they are, even if they are not “on the menu”. It doesn’t get any better than that. That’s what having a home mountain is about. (That’s not to say that there’s not good stuff going on upstairs Captain Dan, it’s just that most of us can’t afford lunches that cost $20-$30 every day)

There Was No Stupid Gondola

The stated goal was the stupid gondola was supposed to finished for the 21-22 season. Everyone that had any familiarity with the project knew that wasn’t going to happen in one construction season. It’s a beast of a project, not to mention an entire waste of 65 million dollars. We had a one season reprieve, before the gondola will completely change the face of Alpine Meadows.

I guess you can sense this article is turning the corner here, as not everything was awesome about this season…

The Erosion Of Alpine Meadows’ Identity

This was the season where Alterra Mountain Company made a serious assault on the identity of Alpine Meadows. For the second time in a decade, the iconic Alpine Meadows name and logo has been removed from most everything that Alterra can lay claim to owning.

They don’t own us. I will never call the mountain by that new name, nor would I ever sport that new logo that was designed for a football jersey. If you’re reading this blog consistently, you’re probably in the same place.

The owners of Alpine Meadows never once acknowledged that this season was the 60th anniversary of Alpine Meadows. Not once. Nor did they truly acknowledge the 40th anniversary of the 1982 avalanche. Just to be clear, local managers were a part of the remembrance on March 31, but outside of this valley, nothing was said. Shameful.

Viva Alpine Meadows!

The Early Closing Of Alpine Meadows – It’s Complicated

It’s tough to be awake this morning, and not be gearing up to head to Alpine Meadows. While the skiing yesterday was not necessarily stellar, conditions are really quite good. The Palisades zone was looking like a blue square run, and rocks that were lurking a week ago are now well covered again. Lower on the mountain, the various pathways leading back to Summit look good again and should easily last until early May, which was the plan, until we had two serious heat waves this spring.

On Saturday the official operations blog posted this explanation:

We almost always close Alpine before Palisades, and this year is no exception. It’s true that we lost a lot of snow to the warm temperatures, as explained above. But there are other factors at play here, too. Just a few weeks ago, when the winter looked like it was completely over, we started scheduling out work on our summer projects at Alpine. We have a new snowmaking system going in at Weasel and timber clearing that we need to do for the U.S. Forest Service. Although we now have more snow, those plans are locked in and we need to start work on them to complete them prior to next season. 

Now that is some classic gaslighting, and many of us are too smart to accept that explanation. When there used to be actual competition between Alpine Meadows and the mountain now known as Olympic Valley, both mountains made an effort to be the last mountain open in Tahoe. Ever since KSL purchased a majority stake in Alpine Meadows, most of the mountain managers since that time still made the effort to keep Alpine Meadows going as long as they could with just Summit running. Please, let’s not normalize Alpine Meadows closing early.

Neither the stupid gondola project or the upgrades to the snowmaking system were really expected to interrupt late season operations. We saw that last spring, when Summit continued to run, and several sources said the same would apply this spring.

Here’s the more likely scenario. Just a couple of weeks ago, snow was melting like crazy and it was looking like it was going to be very difficult to find the snow to keep the West Runout to Summit alive. Nobody expected that super typhoon Malaka was going to finally cause a change to a very stagnant weather pattern. The call was made and staff was notified that April 17th was going to be it. Once that call was made, it’s very difficult to undo. Staff started making other plans. People wanted to go to Mexico, just like I did. They needed to return to school, visit family or more likely, move on to other jobs. Then it started snowing again like crazy. Almost 4 feet fell last week and another 3 feet may fall this week. Oops.

I know that during every year I was a public school teacher, we both enjoyed snow days and feared them. Sometimes, a snow day meant that I got in a good ski day at Alpine Meadows. But if we took too many snow days, we needed to extend our school year later into June. As much as I liked teaching, nobody ever wanted that to happen.

Many that have skied Alpine Meadows forever do not agree that the Alpine Meadows and Olympic Valley ski experience is the same. My locker is at Alpine Meadows. In late spring it’s a short walk to the locker room, where I can put on my boots and take a short walk up to the Summit lift. At Olympic Valley, it’s park farther away, boot up, walk through the parking lot, clomp through a fake village, ride the Funitel, and then walk through a shopping mall before I put skis on the snow. Some people like that, I don’t. I also like the terrain offered by the Summit lift far more than Siberia, Gold Coast and Shirley. It’s not that it’s necessarily better, but for me, it is.

So how exactly many staff does it take to keep Summit open? I can’t begin to guess, but I am certain it’s less than it takes to keep Olympic Valley running. Whatever, it’s not my mountain and I do not get to make those decisions…but gaslighting your customers only made it worse.

The Summer Season Is Ahead

I’m not quite done skiing yet, especially if we return to spring corn sometime soon. I’ll probably do some days here and there at Olympic Valley, and a trip to Mammoth in the spring always brings smiles to my world.

Otherwise, this summer is looking pretty busy for me. My son is getting married in a couple of weeks. Also, we are supposed to be starting the construction of an ADU as soon as possible. I’m not planning on writing much this summer. I have a post or two left in me about the stupid gondola, and as the next season begins to take shape, I imagine I’ll start posting again. I’m not sure what Andy’s plan is for the summer.

Thanks to all for being a part of the Alpine Meadows community…as it gets more “unofficial” than ever.