It was yet another powder day at Alpine Meadows, and it fits in the category of “sleeper pow day”. The overnight snow totals exceeded any forecast expectations, and so did the winds today. That lead to multiple lift closures and variable fun.
Today was nowhere near as good as yesterday. We found fun here and there, but that’s not the same as yesterday. Yesterday just about the whole mountain was open, and everything skied well. A fairly large mid-week crowd was packed in to a much smaller space, with just TLC, Roundhouse and Sherwood spinning today. Much of the terrain off of Roundhouse was pretty wind affected today, with the exception of the wind protected areas of Sympathy and Rolls N Knolls. Somebody also mentioned that traversing out to the Three Sisters area offered consistent powder turns.
Over at Sherwood, people seemed to really like Sherwood Face out to South Face. That said, watching from the lift, it reminded me of watching a bee hive or an ant hill. My run of the day was Hidden Knolls, which still offered some very deep fresh lines on the bottom 2/3, even as we approached the lunch hour. That first 1/3 did feature “hidden moguls”, which I guess are small knolls.
We experimented in a lot of other areas and found that the snow was wind packed or really variable in depth. One minute it would be a foot deep and the next minute I was submarining knee deep under the snow with a firm wind crust on top.
Skiing is not all about the powder game. The limited groomed terrain skied smooth and fast. The key was to find that place with good visibility and fewer people in your space. This morning that was the “Fast Lane”, the nickname for East Creek, as it is where skiers from Scott Ridge and Bobby’s are lead footing it back to the Scott chair. With no Scott chair in operation today, it was empty in the fast lane.
Tomorrow brings us yet more snow and wind. Another foot to 18 inches of snow is possible through tomorrow afternoon. Winds will likely affect some lift operations again. Then things go downhill…
The first of possibly several AR events moves in by Thursday afternoon. That said, the timing keeps moving up on these things. Snow levels have been increased. In today’s watches and warnings, snow levels will run up to about 8500 feet before dropping closer to 7500 feet sometime on Friday. Although the point forecast currently shows snow for Saturday and Sunday, the high temperatures are expected to be in the mid-30’s. So that snow will be wet and mixed with clear snow. Consequently, a Flood Watch has been issued for just about all of the Northern Sierra and Tahoe region for areas below 6500 feet. That includes just about all of Truckee and North Tahoe region. There’s a lot of snow, and that snow is blocking the routes where a lot of rain would usually drain. At this time, flooding is expected in low lying and poorly drained areas, as well as on small streams. No major river flooding is expected yet.
The underlying subtext here is that this is a weekend to not come to Tahoe. The skiing is going to be both limited and probably not great. Local communities are going to be facing some struggles with potential flooding and limited resources available for help. Having a surge of powder chasers in the area will only make things more difficult.
A second AR event moves in around Monday. Currently it is showing as all snow on the point forecast, but that is outside of the range of certainty. As I have mentioned many times here, a shift in the jet stream just 50 miles to the north or south can mean the difference between a lot of snow, or a lot of rain.
On a positive note, the ensembles have trended the total QPF (quantitative precipitation forecast) downward for the longe range. It now shows closer to 12-16 inches instead of 16-20 inches. That is still a huge amount of wetness that nobody really wants at this time. I can’t wait until we can just get a reasonable dry spell…
Didn’t make it to alpine, but over performing the forecast is truly the trend lately. Rose, the farthest east resort in Tahoe reported 14-20” last night after a predicted 4-8”. That 14-20 was a pretty significant underreport… it was realistically 20-30” of new snow overnight, for one of the deepest driest blower pow days I’ve ever experienced. My expectations for today were low, but this was the biggest sleeper pow day I have ever experienced.
As for the ARs, I sent you the GFS run from last week indicating 20+” of precip for Tahoe, many skiers have taken notice. I heard that number thrown out on about a dozen different chairlift rides today. Given that the last 8 GFS runs have all had 15” of precip on their 14 day accumulated total for the crest, do you see this becoming a catastrophic event as so many are suggesting. I have my opinions, and I worry that the visitors from the flat lands won’t take any of it seriously, but I’d like to know your thoughts on if Tahoe is near doomsday levels. Heavy wet snow on an uncharacteristically dry snowpack… are towns like Incline and Alpine Meadows at risk for catastrophic avalanches running down the major drainages. Do you see this as a possible reliving of the avalanche depicted in the movie Buried?
Not trying to be a doomsdayer, but the chairlift talk focused more on doomsday scenarios today than it did on whether or not the Chutes would open.
Floods, roof collapses, avalanches…I have heard every doomsday scenario over the last couple of days.
Mark- was that you I rode up TLC with this morning right after amazing first tracks down Hidden Knolls. Were you skiing on K2,’s with AT bindings and with a female? I should have introduced myself.
Not me, but that guy may have been cooler 😜
No way. Maybe next time.
Predicting lift status lately on either side using available info is no better than using a Ouija Board. It’s as if it’s more of a tool to send people to whatever side ” makes the most business sense”
The late shift–first chair 1pm was pretty sweet.
Steve Olsen – allow me to share a rule of thumb taught to me by a pro patroller many years ago. If you see wind blowing snow across the top of the mountain it’s a good bet Summit will close. When I drive into the parking lot there was snow blowing across everything; 20+ mph wind gust at the base. It was a good bet half the lifts were on wind hold, and they were. It has everything to do with safety, not a business decision.
Well said.
Thank you for the pic of “Andrew P demonstrates the depth of the snow at his Alpine Meadows home”. I appreciate knowing the snow levels in the valley. I have not been up since the storm series started, so am way behind in shoveling. I expect my place in Alpine Meadows (on Mineral Spring) will only be found if the garage driveway has been plowed. Sorry but the storms remind me of ’82. Lite snow, high winds, heavy wet snow & more high winds do not mix. The AM Professional Ski Patrol are Hero’s just by going out to ‘blow’ and mitigate the slide potential.