It was a bluebird beauty of a day at Alpine Meadows. None of the upper mountain was open yesterday and there was deep snow out there just waiting for today’s skiers and riders. The problem is that everybody knew that, so it was a pretty busy day as well. They were lined up early for Summit, even though a delayed start was expected. Have I said that the Alpine Meadows Ski Patrol and Mountain Ops team has been crushing it all season? I’ll say it again, the Alpine Meadows Ski Patrol and Mountain Ops team has been crushing it all season. Summit opened about 10 minutes after 9. All other scheduled lifts opened right on schedule.
Highway 89 was a solid line of cars at 7:30am…on a Monday. The upper lots were full at Alpine Meadows by 11:00am…on a Monday. I mentioned the other day on the TGR ski forum that Mondays are now a weekend day. Another person corrected me:
Weekends are now Wed-Tues when it snows. – Jahroy on the TGR Ski Forum
We kept waiting for the Summit line to abate. Here’s what it’s looked like around 10am:
As a general rule, I can do the Summit line when it is inside of the corral and organized. I won’t do it when it’s outside of the RFID gates and turns into a Mad Max free for all. I never did ski Summit today. Evidently the line quickly disappeared when the cloud cover rolled in around noon. Or maybe it’s just that they were all hiking to Upper beaver and beyond.
Having these big powder dumps before the mountains are fully open is tough. There’s just not as many opportunities to spread out and find the few powder stashes that are still relatively unknown. Today we still managed to find all sorts of fun off of Roundhouse and TLC in cut up powder and linking a few turns of freshies here and there. I still managed to tag a rock or two down low. Terrain expansion is shifting into high gear this week. Scott looks like it will be ready to go tomorrow. Sherwood should be ready by Wednesday. As the official blog said, they’re working on Lakeview as well. I’m guessing that will be there by the weekend.
Just a quick reminder…Alpine Meadows did not even open until December 16th last year. It’s December 12th and we are likely to have the whole mountain by the end of the week.
More Snow?
For the last couple of days the models have gone quiet on us. There’s not a real great chance of snow any time in the next 10 days. I kind of told you that was a likely outcome, as it is the nature of La Niña seasons in Tahoe. At least we are headed into this drier period with a good solid base, which sets things up for a solid holiday season for those that want to come to Tahoe to ski and ride, and those that aim to make a lot of dough off of those visitors. At some point we will be talking about more storms and more snow. Until then, all skiing is fun. If you only come for the powder days, you’re missing out. The temperatures are cold and the skiing will continue to be great.
Spot on about it being hard to disperse crowds before everything is open for the season. But having TLC Roundhouse and Summit really mitigated the crowding. If it had just been 2 chairs, it wouldve been unbearable. Run of the day was my last few runs, dropping off the top of TLC to the cornice line near where the photo was taken. Deep and snorkel worthy are the only ways I could describe those turns.
I was in the Summit crowd and I will have to say it was worth it. Got 4 good pow runs in and even hiked out to Beaver & Estelle twice. Sometime you have to decide between quality and quantity. Whatever works best for you is cool.