The correct answer turned out to be “A”. If you don’t know what that means, you did not read yesterday’s post. Apparently there was a glitch in the Matrix with the automated emails for yesterday’s post. So here’s a gentle reminder to all of you that UnofficialAlpine.com is primarily a website, not an email newsletter. Although it’s great that most of the time you can get an email, we like it better when you show up at the website. It gives us a better sense of how many people are really seeing the page, and it encourages you to see the full discussion and comments on each post.
So the traffic situation was gnarly again today in getting to either Palisades or Alpine Meadows, which was answer “A” from yesterday’s post. There was also a TJFS event and what looked like a Master’s race given the number of old guys strutting through the breezeway in their speed suits. How crowded was it? ALL parking was full at both mountains at 9:35 this morning.
The longest line today was for breakfast at Treats. I could have gone upstairs, but a cinnamon roll from Melanie was calling. Other than that, if you were willing to skip Summit, Sherwood and Lakeview, there were plenty of short lines today. There was an exception around 10 this morning when Sherwood was still on mechanical hold, resulting in longer lines everywhere else. We did a quick review of the app and saw that the shortest line was at Red Dog and the Resort Chair over the hill. This resulted in my third trip on the B2B this season, this time exiting at the top of KT22.
The Saddle was a slick as snot and crowded to boot, not the best choice. The new Red Dog is certainly faster than the old Red Dog. You can see why they want to resplice the cable next week, as it’s sagging really close to the ground toward the top. The run down to the Resort at Whatever They Are Calling It These Days was firm and fast, with few people. The Resort Chair…slow as molasses. It reminded us of the old Hot Wheels. We wondered which was longer. LiftBlog.com reports that Resort chair is 9.5 minutes, compared to Hot Wheels at 13.
About this time, I noted that Sherwood was off mechanical hold, so some of us beelined it back to the B2B to get back to Alpine. I still hate Easy Street with a passion. The B2B views…spectacular. FWIW, we squeezed 7 adults into a car today with 6 pairs of skis.
Even though Sherwood was open, I never made it over there today. Instead I hot lapped the chalky off piste snow all around Yellow. I did do a test run up Scott at one point but found that the softened snow was getting scraped off faster than the new surface could soften underneath.
What About Sunday?
The weather is still supposed to change. I think snow will fall and it will be colder, much colder. Also there is a 49ers game at noon tomorrow. Hopefully football fans will decide that watching a game is better than skiing. There’s some model disagreement this afternoon. The point forecast for Alpine Meadows is still showing the potential for 4-8 inches of snow tomorrow. Most of this is likely to fall during the day, not tonight. So the upshot is, it won’t truly be a powder day, it’s more likely to be a storm day with some accumulation.
The latest run of the GFS still shows the potential for 4-8 inches of snow from the system:
The Short Range Ensemble forecast is less optimistic, showing the potential for 1-3 inches of snow.
Of the two different forecasts, most meteorologists are likely to trust the SREF, as it is more high skilled in the short range and is compiled from more than one model. The high temperature tomorrow only gets to 25°. Monday it only tops put at 19° with a stiff east wind. It’s safe to say that there will be some new light snow to soften the surface tomorrow. It won’t be enough to erase moguls. The forecast remains pretty dry after tomorrow’s event into the first 10 days of February.
We left Reno at 645am and Google Maps said 89 was clear when we checked at the ag station. By the time we hit the 89 exit it was backed up onto the freeway and GM was reporting red. We turned around and popped into Truckee for breakfast but Jax was closed.
Went home.
Starting to hate my IKON pass. I’ve skied twice in January.
That’s sad. We left our house in Truckee at 6:45… through mouse hole by 7:00. We arrived at 7:20… parked in lot three.
My experience having skied both mountains each of the past few days is that the groomers at Alpine were superior to PT. Especially the steeper runs at PT, like Red dog Face, KT Saddle, were quite firm even in the morning. But there was nice off-piste to be had at both mountains. At PT while the group cruised down the slick groomed to the Resort Chair I ventured to Valley View for winter snow. And after I lost the group I did a couple of laps by Ole Lady that were slightly bumped with winter snow. And for a change in pace Tower 16 offered spring snow and soft bumps.
I knew you found fun over there…
Answer is yes ‘A’TA Addicted to Alpine
Traffic? huh? where?
Cmon peeps they can have it on weekends, plenty of other fun stuff to do on weekends, and yes even cleaning toilets sure beats sitting in traffic to go ski with all the Ikon Jerry’s these days.
Still laughing at all them fools. So thanks for the laughs alls ya, as been said before, laughter is the best meicine. Hehe.