Demand

If yesterday and today are any indication, there is still plenty of demand for skiing and riding at Alpine Meadows. For the second day in a row, the upper lots were about full, with the exception of the bottom part of Subway. I think that may have filled up too, except that new visitors probably don’t know it is there. That’s a good thing, as lift lines and some very crowded slopes were basically the story today.

Do some math here with me. Going on the assumption that 100k Ikon passes were sold in the region for the ’22-’23 season. Most of those people probably renewed, and then there’s the shiny new passholders…who bought for next season because of the shiny new boxes. Their ’23-24 passes are now valid as well, bringing that regional skiers number to maybe around 110k. If just 5% of passholders still have an interest in skiing and riders, that puts 5500 skiers and riders at Alpine Meadows today. It probably wasn’t quite that high, but it sure felt like it.

Also, as to Ikon pass resorts that are still open in the US, it’s Alpine Meadows and Mammoth. While Mammoth may have more to offer, it is far easier for travelers to get to Alpine Meadows. Ikon tourists are still going strong, craving the novelty of skiing in June. Over the last two weeks, I have met people from Washington, Utah, Colorado and the east coast.

So what did that look like? I did two laps on Summit, and then had to talk myself off the ledge. As much as I enjoyed the fact that the grooming team smashed the sun cups on Sunspot, the increasingly crowded groomed slopes leading back to Summit were like freeways. With the Summit line extending beyond the RFID gates for most of the morning, the Summit line harshed my mellow.

This was not a problem for me, as I have no trouble keeping myself busy off of Roundhouse. While the Roundhouse line sometimes exceeded the corral, people just seemed happier there and Rachel kept things positive and upbeat. With a lot of skiers on the mountain, there were plenty of people to mash down sun cups and improve off piste terrain. We enjoyed a lot of fun runs on various angles of Sympathy Face, continuing on to Rolls & Knolls. We also worked on smoothing out Fall Line and the Tiegel Chutes zone. The sad thing is, we’re just getting these zones smoothed out and then there will be a 4 day break for the sun cups to rebuild again.

There was a lot of discussion today about the ABC chair and how it could really alleviate some of the pressure on Summit. It would also keep the numbers down on the routes back to Summit. Yes, the base area of ABC is currently burnt out. But there seems to be a lot of availability of snow in the area to push back in there to get it in the mix. The problem is, once that bare ground gets a chance to warm up, it’s very difficult to get it covered with snow again, as the amount of heat stored in the soil and rocks is immense. It’s unfortunate that mountain managers did not have a crystal ball to forecast the unprecedented amount of demand for skiing at Alpine Meadows this June so they could have maintained that base before it completely melted out.

Yes, it was very busy. But I am still grateful to have these flying chairs to take me up the mountain so I can still slide down on the snow during the month of June.

I saw quite a few skiers and riders really enjoying the newly built terrain park on Terry’s Return. I also noted a lot of new Instagram reels posted yesterday from action in the park yesterday. My son grew up skiing many of those types of features, and I recall that spring is big for filming park riding. It’s that time of the year where videos get posted and emailed out from young skiers and riders, hoping to gain sponsorships from someone other than good old mom and dad.

I am amazed at the rate of snow melt happening around Alpine Meadows. Looking up at the Three Sisters, I noticed that two of them barely go this week. Climbing back into my memory banks, I remember skiing Three Sisters on July 4th of 2011. So although we got a lot of snowfall this year, that does not always mean that we have a big snowpack lower on the mountain. We saw some snow farming happening last week on Kangaroo, and this week there is a new stockpile over near Meadow. Best of luck to mountain ops in keeping things rolling.

Lastly, today was the first Aloha Saturday pig roast. I was disappointed to not see Captain Dan out there this morning in authentic Polynesian attire, digging the banana leaf wrapped pig out of the imu. Still, I was motivated (or hungry) enough to see what was being offered in the Aloha spirit today. Kalua pork was included in pizzas, sandwiches and in the Aloha Bowl. Also offered was a huli huli chicken plate. I settled on the Kalua Pork Bun. Hunger got the best of me, as I guess I ate it before I took the picture. It was good. Was it $18.49 good, after the Ikon pass discount? Probably not that good, but nice to have something different.

There was a pretty big build up of thunderheads along the crest this afternoon. I see that NOAA is calling for a 20% chance of thunderstorms, hopefully after 2 pm. That said the snow was pretty glue-like by 11:30 today. See you out there tomorrow. I’ll be sporting Alpine Meadows green.