Sometimes the stars just do not line up. Today was one of those days. The plan was to rise early and head for the slopes, but I never made up to the lodge today.
Before I went to bed, I cleared off my deck and the exterior steps to my front door. Snow showers at that time in the evening were very light. When I woke up this morning the steps, deck and the driveway were deep in snow. Over two feet of snow was piled high on the deck and even more on the steps where it blows into the canyon that I create when shoveling.
My railing in the morning
I checked the webcam and the mountain site before committing to more shoveling and discovered that Palisades Tahoe was closed for the day and that Alpine Meadows would have Roundhouse and Treeline Cirque spinning at 10am or perhaps a little later. The crew at Alpine had their hands full with avalanche work, grooming, parking lot and road clearing. One look at the Roundhouse webcam showing the line filling up and I decided to take the day off.
The trees were well covered and the view out my window was dimmished after the evening storm
Around 11:30 am I had second thoughts and suited up with hopes of getting a few runs in before returning to shovel. I headed up the hill and within a few yards found myself at the end of a long line of cars that were not moving. I hung around for a little while and then turned around a went to Tahoe City grocery shopping (not my favorite sport). It was still snowing fairly heavily. When I arrived back at Alpine Meadows the side at the bottom of the hill indicated that the parking lots were full.
Later in the afternoon I tried again. Suited up and headed up the hill. It was after 2pm. Another line of cars, although parking was available. It was almost 3pm and I just gave up at that point.
Perhaps those of you who were at the hill enjoying the deep powder would like to live a comment and make me feel bad for not getting my butt out earlier this morning.
We also skipped it today. We had what seemed like 45 tons of snow to remove from our driveway and extra parking spaces. Our plan was to go later in the day after everybody left. Then we got the tweet about the parking lot being full around 1 pm. So everyone did not leave. We canned plans as the town plow came by again, leaving another berm to dig out before it froze solid. Isn’t winter fun! Tomorrow is another day.
It appears (from everything on their web site) that the powers that be have decided to call that area over the ridge Palisades, as opposed to Olympic Valley. Not Palisades Tahoe, which they include Alpine (unfortunately, not Alpine Meadows).
We didn’t make it to Alpine either. Our plow service still hasn’t cleared our driveway! Geoff spent hours digging a pathway just wide enough to get my car out., so I was able to ski XC from 4:00 to 5:00. It was just beautiful out there
Once I heard roundhouse was open and the road to the condos was open, I ventured out to Alpine. Roundhouse lines were big, but the ski-ing was worth the price of admission.
Turns out the best call we made was to switch to TLC, cut a path towards REDACTED Turns out very few people had the same idea, so 12 laps later we were on the 3.57pm chair and still finding untouched lines REDACTED as the visibility just kept improving. Despite the limited terrain, I am going to say today ranked in my top 10 days in 15 years of Alpine.
But karma had the last laugh as the golf cart decided it would go on strike for no apparent reason. Luckily I have great condo neighbors (thanks Stacy – Nagano Olympian and newly minted tow truck- ok Subaru driver) who towed me back to chalet road. All’s well that ends well.
Nice job buddy! I had to redact your comment as some trade secrets should not be revealed!
Oops – duly noted for future reply’s. Sorry about that – trade secrets need to remain secret!