Uncooperative Weather & The Big One Gets Away

We are now just 19 days out from the scheduled opening at Palisades Tahoe, which may or may not include Alpine Meadows. That of course depends on those important words “weather and conditions permitting.” The weather has been a bit uncooperative over the last few days. The current storm track is stuck in Northern California and points north. That leaves Tahoe on the dry side and the warm side. Just for the record, that is not your typical El Niño pattern. No matter what hype you’re reading on other sites, there are no guarantees that a big season is going to happen.

We had a good run of cold temperatures early in the week. That allowed for a good start to snowmaking. The last few days have been warm, including the overnights. Surprisingly, the snow that was made has held up pretty well, even with temperatures ranging into the upper 40’s and 50’s.

In the short range, forecasters have pulled back on rain amounts around Tahoe for the weekend. That is a good thing as snow levels were forecast above the top of the mountain. Another storm is in the pipeline for Monday and Tuesday and that one could bring snow levels back to the base area. Unfortunately we are just getting the tip of the paint brush again, with only a few inches of snow in the forecast.

Looking at the longer range, there is no big pattern change in sight right now. Here’s an overview. The GIF below is a “model trend gif” showing potential total snowfall over the next 16 day period. Each of the last 8 runs of the ensemble forecast is consistent in forecasting about a foot of snowfall potential. The other thing you can see is that the storm track stays to the north through that period, which likely means we maintain warmer weather.

Looking at some of the teleconnections that help us see the bigger picture, here is the PNA Index. We see stronger storms with a negative PNA index. All of those little red lines are the different ensemble models. You can see that only a few of them suggest any negativity over the next 16 days, and that is only a weak signal.

By this time of year, we should start to see some activity in the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO). That is not the case yet. While some of the ensemble members show MJO in Phase 8 and 1, which is typically good for us, that is not the consensus. That would be those green lines in the middle, which the weather dweebs call the “circle of doom”. When the MJO is in the circle, it’s basically having zero impact on our weather.

Is A Slow Start A Good Thing Or A Bad Thing?

Well that depends on whom you are talking to at the moment. We’ve mentioned before this thing called the “KCRA effect”. When the weather people on the major market news stations in Sacramento and the Bay Area mention big storms on the way and show pictures of snow falling on Donner Pass, it directly causes more people to choose to go skiing. When the forecast is dry and the weather people are not showing people playing in the snow, interest in skiing drops off dramatically. This time of year that has everything to do with people making reservations for the major holiday periods. No family wants to book a winter week in Tahoe if there doesn’t seem to be a good chance of great conditions. Based on what we are seeing now, I would expect a less busy holiday season.

For many of us, that’s a good thing, as long as we are sliding on some snow. Potentially it’s not a good thing though. This is the year that the parking reservation system at Palisades and Alpine Meadows is the talk of the town. Watching the backlash evolve over the last few weeks has been interesting to say the least. Some big names around the business have come out and said “This won’t work without having a solid public transportation alternative.” There is that one extra loud mom on Facebook who keeps cheering on the idea that more people will start riding the bus. She has obviously never tried riding a TART bus from Truckee to Alpine Meadows.

I foresee a possibility where ski conditions are not that great heading into the holiday season. That in itself may become a temporary solution to the traffic problems in North Tahoe. I fear that the powers that be might conflate that with the parking reservations in order to declare a victory and extend the charade for another season. Since Palisades Tahoe is a privately held company, they are under no obligation to share visitation numbers that might allow us to compare this season to the über busy last season.

A Missed Opportunity

I’ve said it several times before, the thing that could really change the overcrowding at Palisades and Alpine Meadows would be if the Ikon Pass had another option for skiers and riders in the Northern California market. Unfortunately, the big one got away. This week, the Bear Valley Ski Area was snapped up by the California Mountain Resort Company. It was a smart move by CMRC. They now have 4 ski areas in their portfolio: Bear Valley, Dodge Ridge, China Peak and Mountain High. Each of these resorts are now available on the “Cali Pass”.

In previous articles, I stated that Bear Valley was a great acquisition target for Alterra. Over the last 9 years it was under the ownership of Skyline International. During that time, the ski area received almost zero investment and struggled to stay solvent. Long time readers will remember that we had a partner site at Unofficial Bear Valley for a season until that writer realized that resort was at a dead end. The thing is, with a proper investment of capital, Bear Valley is a great mountain and has all sorts of potential for the ski area and real estate development. It was a natural fit for Alterra and had the potential to draw a good number of people away from Tahoe roads and slopes in the coming seasons. Did Alterra even make a move? We will never know as Alterra plays their cards pretty close to their chests.

On a related note, Dodge Ridge also is a part of CMRC, and they were another possibility I have mentioned for a possible acquisition by Alterra. We can probably scratch that off the list now too. Tim Cohee, the president of CMRC, has a long history of resort management in California. Cohee managed Kirkwood and China Peak at times. He also chaired the Ski Business & Resort Management program at Sierra Nevada College for 15 years. The guy knows what he is doing.

It probably won’t happen this season, but in future seasons, it’s likely that a reasonable number of people will abandon the Ikon Pass in favor of the Cali Pass. If I were willing to live someplace in the foothills, I would certainly make the jump too.

If you want to read a deeper look at the sale of Bear Valley, Stuart Winchester has an excellent piece on that at The Storm Skiing Journal.

Bring out your anti-jinxes! It’s time to take off your snow tires, put your lawn furniture back out and put that extra five gallons of gas into the car instead of the snow blower. We want winter. I planned a camping trip at the coast next week. I hope it helps!

Note: Starting with this post, I set the email subscriptions to just send an excerpt of each post. To view the entire post, you will have to click the link in the email to load the post in the site. Until we have some sort of resolution on photos not appearing in those emails for Apple users, it’s the best I can do. Honestly, the whole point of the Unofficial Alpine site is to build a community of skiers and riders at Alpine Meadows. We want you to be fully present, reading other peoples’ comments, seeing some of the other “stuff” that is here. Thanks for understanding.