Sleepy Saturday

You would have hardly known it was a Saturday at Alpine Meadows today. Wednesday and Thursday were absolutely much busier, due to the influx of skiers and riders pushed over to Alpine Meadows from the other side. Lot 3 was only half full and the Subway lot was completely empty, with the exception of the dog park crew. Skiing conditions are not quite ideal right now, and when it’s 92° at Folsom Lake, people are not thinking about skiing.

Temperatures were a couple of degrees warmer over night and this morning, so the snow softened rapidly, and then developed stickiness sooner than yesterday. Otherwise the skiing was quite similar to yesterday. The best skiing and riding was found on piste again, with only limited areas off piste skiing good. There was less grooming over night. Sunspot and D8 did not get groomed overnight, reducing options for good skiing off of Summit.  Plus it was a chilly east wind, that sent me to Sherwood at 8:25, via TLC, as I did not have high hopes for High Traverse.

The Sherwood groomer was skiing excellent, until it got a bit crowded for my tastes. That sent me in search of off piste terrain that was at least sort of fun. Sherwood Right Face was punchy. Powerline was punchy, actually sucking a ski pole right off my arm. Chute Zero … punchy. Patty and I found some redemption on the not groomed combo of Robin Hood and Maid Robin Tucks. Because they were at least recently groomed, they were not punchy, they were just a bit rutted and sun-cupped.

Somewhere around 10am, Weasel was skiing very well. It’s not the most exciting terrain, but it gave us a place to keep skiing, while keeping an eye on the status of Scott Chair. Scott opened about 10:45 and conditions were very similar to yesterday. The grooming team again refreshed the Patrol shack roundabout for easier access to Ridge and Bobbys. Conditions were very similar to yesterday, except for the line that developed at Scott. It was not a big line by any standard, other than my own, where all lines are big. Of course my ski buddies blamed me for mentioning how great it was yesterday. Having any line at all shut down any intentions of skiing through until 2 pm.

There’s no miracles in the forecast to improve current conditions. There’s still that chance of showers and thunder showers tomorrow afternoon, and then temperatures remain above freezing through next week. That’s problematic, as the snow quality where it is not been skied in will deteriorate. Sun cups can grow quickly at this time of year.

One thing that could help would be to expand grooming again to improve the ski experience. Today the list of normally groomed, but not groomed terrain included SunSpot, D8, Boomerang, Ladies Slalom, Yellow, Red Ridge, Robin Hood and Maid Robin Tucks. Also…no terrain park…not that I use it myself, but it does bring in the family crowd. My nieces will be at Alpine Meadows tomorrow and they will be sad that the Tiegel park is gone.

Today would have been a perfect day for a BBQ on the Sun Deck…or at the Chalet…or at the Ice Bar. That truck that may or may not be a taco truck also remained idle today. Looking for a midday snack, we were forced to share one of those godawful pretzels today at the Chalet. Ugh. Mental note: sack lunch for tomorrow.

Lastly, I got a peek today at the final snow stats numbers for Alpine Meadows. These are the “official” measurements from the base station near the bottom of Roundhouse, which are collected only through the month of April. Generally, storms in May are less common and don’t add much to the snowpack. Yes, I know, every once in a while we do get bigger storms in May, last year being a prime example.

We finished the Alpine Meadows seasonal totals at 607 inches of snowfall at the base of the mountain, which is 170% of the average. That makes this the third biggest season since these records were started in 1970. The largest season was ’94-’95 at 662 inches, followed by ’10-’11 at 615.5 inches.

Some fun loving people at the top of Scott Chute today…hiding the photo behind this link (not family safe). There’s some stuff you just can’t unsee.