What makes a beautiful day on the slopes? Sunshine, cold temperatures, not much wind, plenty of trails topped with winter snow conditions, and not many people on the hill. I think that would describe today at Alpine Meadows, just right. Daytime temperatures increased from the early morning readings that were below 20 degrees to the high 20’s and mid-thirties. Winds were light this morning, but they have increased significantly this afternoon.
Groomed slopes were generally well executed and a joy to ski this morning. Off-piste varied from firm winter skier pack to a hard chunky surface that must have received too much sun yesterday. Wolverine remained un-groomed today, but Sunspot, Solar Flare, and Alpine Bowl were nicely groomed. Tower 19 fit into the more firm chunky description while Pygmy Forest (it really does not exist at this point in time as the short trees are under snow) was winter skier pack.
Palisades joined Pygmy Forest while High Yellow Gully and Our Father offered slightly softer skier pack. Moguls in Our Father are getting bigger each day. The snow in D7 was pleasant enough, but the moguls on the lower section are also getting pretty big. Expert Shortcut and Art’s Knob skied nicely his morning as did Gentian Gully. Dropping into Expert Shortcut there was a section of shaved ice that is a little bit tricky, but not enough to keep us off he slope.
Moguls in Our Father growing by the day and High Yellow Lower section of Gentian Gully
The night crew dug out under the Summit Lift line because the tips of our skis were just about touching the ground. The result of this project was a large area of rubble that was pushed into D8 and down The Face (mainly under the Summit Chair). These areas were closed today. You would not have wanted to ski them anyway.
Snow that was pushed down in to D8 Tower dug out at the top of the Face
The top of Alpine Bowl Chair is partially buried. It will take a good amount of digging to clear it off enough to run the lift.
The top of Alpine Bowl Chair looks pretty well snowed in.
We had a discussion in our locker room this morning regarding Fourth of July skiing. The question was: When was the last time the Alpine Meadows side of Palisades was open for skiing on July 4th? After digging around and receiving a number of guesses we determined 2011 was the last time skiing was available at Alpine Meadows.
That is all I have for today. Will the ski area be open tomorrow? Maybe and maybe not as the forecast is calling for high winds and dumping snow.
Enjoy your day,
Andy
July 4, 2011 there was a bear amongst the skiers on the hill. Doesn’t look like I can post a photo here, but I can send it to Mark if you want it.
You captured the state of the mountain very well, Andy. It was nicely variable and very nicely un-crowded even with lots of parents and kids out. I wish we had rolled the dice on Gentian–it seemed far fetched that it would be good. Should have just gone for it.