Activate Walk Mode

The next two days is definitely going to separate those that like skiing a lot from those of us that absolutely love skiing, unconditionally. Over the last twenty four hours, the temperatures at Alpine Meadows have ranged from 55° to 84°. Snow does not last long under these conditions. More and more, there’s areas of the mountain that require that you click out of your skis or board to cross over dirt patches. By tomorrow morning, you may be walking from as far as Sandy’s Corner back to Summit. That’s what will separate “like” from “unconditionally love”. If you and your family or your crew don’t fit into that second category, it’s probably time to explore other activities besides skiing and riding.

Mountain Manager Jeff Goldstone mentioned that they were out working on the runout until 7 pm last night, only to find it again mostly melted out this morning. July is a very challenging month for ski area mountain managers. We appreciate their effort each and every day.

The photo above shows the state of  West Runout, which brings you back to Summit. That photo was taken at 7:45am, before there was any ski traffic. By 9:30am that last 100 yards was basically dirt and required walking. That’s when it was only 65°. So add that into the challenges checklist, along with paid parking and really warm temperatures. If you can accept the walking part, there was some fantastic skiing and riding available today, given that it is July.

I put in six laps on Summit this morning before the line got out of hand. Wolverine offers exceptionally good snow quality, as does D8 and D7. As you lap out of Wolverine, you probably want to avoid turning down Werner’s to get back to Summit…unless you enjoy walking. Yesterday you could hop a little dirt patch near Sandy’s. Today you would have to be an Olympic long jumper to clear the gap. Also noted was the mid-slope waterfall that looked like a Jerry magnet. Taking Summer Road across Sympathy Face to get to Dance Floor was the better option.

Alpine Bowl also had good coverage but was definitely much more crowded, as first time visitors have no clue how to find Wolverine Bowl. There was a narrow funnel at the bottom, where Mountain Ops built a snow bridge over a creeklet. There was just a little too much rise in that bridge, allowing the bareback bib bro crowd to treat it as a terrain park feature.

If you know me, rarely a day goes by that I don’t mention Sunspot. Today will be the last time of the season. Today it required about 20 yards of sideslipping a narrow path through the Sunspot Shoals, followed by a mandatory 20 feet of stepping over mud and dirt to get to a clear line. But the bottom two-thirds of Sunspot offered some of the best turns on the mountain, with essentially no competing traffic. We did two there and probably would have returned for more except for the Summit line situation getting a bit rowdy. See you next season Sunspot.

We did some laps over in the Weasel Zone to finish out the day and found that conditions were about the same as yesterday, as in spicy. I noted that the grooming team had managed to farm and stockpile some snow near the top of Weasel to help hold that area together for two more days.

Parking was not as full today as it was yesterday. Also, by the time the parking lot was starting to fill, that’s when many people were also leaving. There was a lot of grumbling to be heard today regarding whether the paid parking reservations were even necessary. It seems to me that had there been more transparency sooner about the limited ski terrain available this week, more people may have opted to opt out. Then again, after more than 6 months of colder than average temperatures, the forecast for the current heat wave did not exist until about 10 days ago.

Skiing is fun, and I put myself in the almost unconditional love column. See you out there tomorrow.