I was pleasantly surprised today at Alpine Meadows. There were far fewer people on the hill than expected (thank you World Cup!). I left the house twenty minutes later than yesterday, hit minimal traffic on 89 and found almost no cars in Lot 3 when I arrived. Eventually the upper lots did fill and more and more people arrived, but that slow pace of arrival gave people a chance to spread out across the mountain.
That meant that lift lines were absolutely manageable, even with no additions to the schedule. Word on the street was that a few liftees may have had “World Cup flu” this morning, and some newly hired “gondoliers” were quickly retrained for standard lift ops. I know there’s always a smile on my face when I am skiing rather than waiting in lift lines. Also, congrats to Team Argentina!
The ski conditions are holding about the same, thanks to weather that has stayed pretty cold throughout December. The most heavily traveled groomed runs are getting somewhat beat up pretty quickly, in particular Alpine Bowl and Rock Garden were developing small moguls by the afternoon hours. Off piste conditions remain variable, with moguls growing larger in some places and less travelled places still being unconsolidated and punchy. The trick is to find those strips in between those places, where the moguls are a little more rounded and not quite as tall. That strategy worked well for Sunspot, Wolverine and Yellow today.
There were no huge additions to groomed terrain yet this morning, with the exception of a very narrow strip of Twilight Zone that saw a few quick groomer passes last night.
I chatted with very well connected sources today about the shortage of grooming staff and if that would be changing anytime soon. Currently some of the grooming team is working on the snow making team at night instead of grooming. Efforts around Scott are ending very soon, leaving only the runouts to Summit and Roundhouse to get filled in. You may have noted that the creek is not fully filled in yet. The goal is to get one nice big flat runout in that area so there is a wider area to spread out and reduce the chances of collisions (or people dropping into the ditch bewteen East Runout and West Runout). Once that job gets done, those people can be put back into groomers at night. In the meantime, even mountain managers have been covering groomer shifts get by. So the answer is soon…
I know that’s not ideal, but come next spring when the mountain can stay open longer, we will appreciate the snow making efforts made now.
Snow Comes Back Into The Forecast
We’re starting to see some changes in the models that will put us back into a wetter pattern. It’s still complicated and it’s not certain, but it looks better than seeing a big white donut hole over the western states on the model runs.
In the short term, there was a small chance that we might see some precipitation around Tuesday that I have been neglecting. Being honest, I had not seen it on the model runs as I was watching total snowfall, not total precipitation. Since the Tuesday system was showing rain to 8000 feet, it has not been showing as snowfall. Yesterday, forecasters were still looking at maybe an inch of snow above 8000 feet, but today, the models seem to be keeping things more to the north. So Monday night into Wednesday morning, we should see more clouds and wind, but hopefully no rain. An inch of snow would be meaningless anyways.
In the longer term, the models are seeing a more significant change around the 27th or 28th of December. As of now, that system could come in as an atmospheric river, bringing first heavy rain, then heavy snow. This system is still 10 days out, which just brings it into the Range of Believability. I wouldn’t move into the probable zone until it’s 5 days out. It is worth keeping your eyes open as travel into the New Year could be impacted. The pattern could stay wet after that system.
