Be Adventurous

Be adventurous. If you arrived at Alpine Meadows today expecting to just ski some nice groomed runs that were not too sticky, you might have been disappointed. Being adventurous and finding your fun off piste was the key to having the fullest day. It was another day of finding those steeper lines that offered the most fun with a minimal runout back to the lift.

The temperatures did not cool down all that much today, and the clouds were basically not a thing at all at Alpine Meadows. The clouds stayed along the east shore of Lake Tahoe. The snow felt slightly faster, or it may be that I did apply another round of summer slush wax this morning. Bobble tells me it’s all in my head.

It was Tower 19 again for the win this morning, with a turn toward Charity to get back to Summit with the least amount of slop. Our Summit session was again abbreviated, wanting to get to Sherwood before it turned to slop. Yellow Trail offered a great route to get to TLC since High Traverse was closed again today.

It was another day for hot lapping Chute Zero, hoping to create some slush bumps. We made decent progress with 6 of us making that lap a bunch of times. I even noted that we were starting to create a wiggle on the route to Sherwood Face (in the section that I believe was the OG Robin Hood trail, as nobody else seems to know the name of it.)

Several people have asked me where Chute Zero is, as there seems to be no “chute” in the area. That is correct this season with so much snowpack. It is the farthest left you can be on South Face and is typically one of the last strips of snow that you can continuously ski at Sherwood. Here it is last season near the closing day of Sherwood. Edit: A person in the know claims this line has been called Sheetz line, named for the first groomer that took a winch cat up that line. After calling it Chute Zero for something like six years, it’s probably stuck. I have asked many employees over the years, and often, different departments or different eras of employees don’t agree.

We made a lap down High Yellow Gully on the way in for a water break and a snack. A good corn day there is a real treat. It’s a lap I have skied many times after Alpine Meadows has closed for the season. Made an interesting discovery at the Meadows Cafe while there, the bacon and egg “muffin”, which is actually an omelet, at $7.40 with the pass discount. It’s probably the cheapest hot food item at Alpine Meadows in about 5 years. It served the purpose today.

Again, the Scott Chair probably opened a little late today for people expecting hot laps on the two groomed runs. We did not even bother. We headed straight to Gentian Gully, exiting at Subway Cirque (aka Ice Cliffs). Since I was at the top of the cliffs a few days ago, the glide crack now extends all of the way across the run and is about a foot wide. Just point them downhill and send it! The snow is skiing excellent in this area. We did find that the traditional traverse back toward Meadow was burnt out in two places, requiring taking a few steps over the mud and rocks or hiking up hill a bit. Be adventurous. Also, if you’re adventuring around at Scott, you might consider rock skis.

When we left at noon, the band was already playing on the Sun Deck to a small crowd and drinks were flowing at the newly renamed Aloha Bar. It was the true Alpine Meadows spirit that we love. I prefer it over the chaos of the Cushing Crossing next door.

See you out there tomorrow. Feel free to be adventurous and smash some sun cups.