Welcome to late spring or is it early summer at Alpine Meadows. This morning was the first day lifts were turning in June. TLC ran for intermediates, Roundhouse ran for hitting the lower slopes, and Summit turned for more advanced skiers. The grooming crew did a nice job of smoothing out a few trails for those that do not venture off piste.
Wolverine Bowl was groomed
Werner’s before the crowd arrived
The sun was out and there were no clouds in the sky. It did not take long for both piste and off-piste to soften offering some nice spring snow. Many of the off-piste trails sported large sun-cups. This offered a rough ride for those that might have ventured beyond the groomed, or previously skied, areas of the mountain. This was particularly true of north facing slopes that had firmed up overnight.
Sun-Cups growing where skiers have not been over the last few days
We were not the only skiers and boarders to show up this morning. A rather large number of people filled chairs on Summit this morning. There was actually a short line for Summit. Roundhouse and TLC were not overcrowded at there bases. The limited number of groomed trails created a very busy situation. We were not happy with the number of people on the limited available slopes, many of whom we thought were moving downhill at excessive speeds. After making a run or two on groomed slopes, we moved on to find slopes that were not excessively dotted with sun-cups.
The Face first thing in the morning. It skied well from the get-g0
Our first attempt was Sunspot as it receives sun early in the morning. I found the surface to be soft allowing me to ski over the smaller sun-cups. As skiers traveled over sun-cup slopes the snow was smoothed out and skiing got better and better.
As the morning moved along we found D6, D7, The Face, Pygmy Forest and East and West Palisades to be very enjoyable. Sunspot got better with each run as did Sympathy Face. Groomed trails such as Alpine Bowl, Yellow, Werner’s, Charity, and Wolverine held up nicely with the exception of the number of people using them. I did not venture out to Beaver, Estelle, or Bernie’s Bowls, but there may have been some good turns to made in those areas. Scott and Sherwood are closed for the season.
West Palisades proved to be excellent
My age is showing. Terry’s Return, a favorite of mine, has been turned into a large terrain park. The entire run is now filled with terrain features and jumps. In my opinion It interferes with exiting East and West Palisades.
A portion of the terrain park at the base of Palisades taking up all of Terry’s Return
The upper parking lot was pretty full for a Friday in June. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.
Enjoy your day,
Andy
Unofficial boomers don’t like the terrain park. Real shocker there. Where can we put a park that won’t piss you off?
I don’t mind the park myself. It needs to be somewhere. But calling people a “boomer” as an insult just shows a lack of real thinking on your part. Also, “boomers” still make up the largest segment of skiers and riders.
“Lack of real thinking” about Mark Park’s comment says it all, is he a child?
Long time viewer, first time commenter. Mark Park you are dating yourself with your comments, and this is coming from a millennial who enjoys the current park set up. It’s great! But where else? Kangaroo had a big pile in nicks run – thought that was going to be a step over from the good ol days. Left side of dance floor, starting at yellow, again a proven park spot. In fact, the ops blog proposed this to be on Howard’s Hollow, not Terrys, which had a spring park a decade ago. Hell, they used to have a dope park on red green (charity if you are too young) which would allow park rat millennials and zoomers to lap roundhouse and let the fully frontal lobe developed types ski the upper mountain.