Hello Skiers,
A lovely spring day engulfed skiers and boarders today. The thermometer pointed to 43 degrees this afternoon. This meant conditions on any slope facing the sun were in spring mode. Conditions today were basically the same as they were yesterday.
Conditions on the north facing slopes such as Palisades, East and West, D7, and D8 remained chalky and slopes such as Sherwood Face, South Face, and runs off Lakeview and Scott softened into corn-like snow.
There appeared to be more people on the hill today than yesterday. I thought lines were a little longer, although they were tolerable. Many runs on the mountain had been well groomed overnight including a couple that are not regularly groomed trails. Those that are used on a regular basis were being overused in my opinion. If you watch people coming down a slope and you think to yourself, “Wow there are a lot of people sliding down that run”, then it is overcrowded. The parking lots at Alpine were not full, but the slopes were filled as were the decks and other seating areas.
We skied a number of groomed runs accessed by various lifts. I noted Powerline on the Sherwood side was groomed creating a very nice soft surface. This is not a run that is often groomed. Although it was not groomed last night, but had been groomed the night before, Scotty’s Beam softened in the sunshine creating a pleasant ski. The firm moguls that were there a few days before had been nicely mowed down. I did venture out to South Face for one tour of the steeper, ungroomed, slope at about 11:30. There were not excessive moguls dotting the hillside. The snow was basically soft and spring-like with the exception of roughness caused by clumps of snow created by prior day skiers. Previous ski tracks had not defrosted at I hit them.
Cooler weather and wind is coming our way. Dress warmly over the next few days if you are heading out to the slopes.
Next time you are complaining about the traffic on Highway 80 heading to or from Tahoe, and the price of gas, think how much fun a train ride might be instead of a car ride. The “Snow Ball Special” ran between Oakland and Norden on Fridays. Round trip fare was $4.45. If you skied Sugar Bowl this was a perfect way to get from m the Bay Area to Tahoe (or close to Tahoe). Thank you Shelly for sending this to me.
Enjoy your day,
Andy
I stayed quite a bit later than you did. It got sticky in most areas around 2 pm. That made skiing just a bit more unpleasant toward the end of the day. One of the nice things about having all of this extra grooming done is that it will be a much nicer foundation for the small amounts of snow falling over the next few days.
Also noted today…Winter Road was cut in last night from Leisure Lane over to Mountain View. And in the same area, Lower Standard was groomed and offered a nice change from Bobby’s and Ridge.