Significantly Better Today

A solid freeze overnight did lead to significantly better ski conditions today at Alpine Meadows. We started the ski day at 8am sharp on Summit under a waning gibbous moon. It’s so sad that the moon looks so big in the sky to our eye, but then looks like a tiny dot in a photograph. Trust me it looked really cool as we crested D8 and the moon looked like it was resting on top of the lift tower.

With neither Sunspot or Solar Flare groomed this morning, we aimed immediately for Terry’s Return, which offered creamy corduroy turns at 8:10am. Things got pretty firm the closer you got to the base area, but the grooming was near perfect given the slush factor yesterday. We spent an hour hot lapping Summit before taking a trip toward Sherwood. Silly me, I left the top of the mountain too soon, opting for a firm and rutted Ladies Slalom rather than taking the hike to High Traverse, which most of my friends did. The reports from High Traverse were much better than yesterday, with much of the punchiness of yesterday eliminated by a good melt & freeze cycle. High Traverse closed by the time I had thoughts of a redo.

The Sherwood groomer skied great today, albeit too crowded for my tastes. That gave me the impetus to check out Powerline, Robin Hood, Sherwood Right Face and Chute Zero. The first of those three were well consolidated and skied pretty well today, though more and more in slow motion as things warmed up. We had hoped to stay at Sherwood until it closed and Scott opened, but the snow got pretty sticky, sending us back to more north facing terrain on the front side.

When Scott did open at 11, the two groomers were skiing well, but not great yet. The transition from firm fun to sticktion happened pretty quickly…and the line got long enough that it was time to call it a day around 11:45.

We were super appreciative that both the Summit and Scott corrals were doubled in size compared to yesterday. That kept people in line, if you know what I mean. Thanks to mountain ops for making that happen! Also noted today, tree removal operations are underway over at Lakeview. You probably have noticed that the tree mortality rate has been very high at both Lakeview and Sherwood over the last few years. Cutting trees and dragging them over snow is much better than dragging them over the ground, or having to remove them by helicopter.

The overnight forecast is not quite as pretty as it was last night. Air temperatures are not forecast to get below freezing, but right at the snow surface, we should still see a freeze tonight. That will continue to improve the quality of the corn skiing for tomorrow. Daytime temperatures are forecast to be near 60° tomorrow, so skiing will absolutely be better earlier rather than later.

I’m noticing that looking at the site stats for Unofficial Alpine, our daily readership is now at about 25% of peak season. People are losing interest in skiing. Temperatures in the valley reach near 100° this weekend. I’m guessing people are thinking more about waterskiing, wakeboarding and wake surfing this weekend. If I still owned a boat, I probably would do the same.