The Ups & Downs Of Skiing

There’s ups and downs to skiing. I am not just talking about the going up on the chairlift and skiing down the mountain. There’s happy parts and less happy parts. Starting off my ski season at Mount Rose today goes into the “really happy” part of skiing. There is no way I wanted to be a part of the first day at either Mount Rose or Mammoth. I have seen some videos of the crowds on day one and said “Holy smokes!” But after staring at the Mount Rose webcams yesterday and seeing minimal crowds, I texted Randy and said “Let’s go skiing tomorrow!”, knowing that you never have to twist Randy’s arm when skiing is involved.

Yes, the open terrain is still not huge, being just the Kit Carson Bowl and the Ponderosa return to the new Lakeview Chair. It wasn’t quite top to bottom, but honestly, I was not missing the Kit Carson Traverse from the top of Northwest. That trail segment often rivals Mountain Run for scariest run in Tahoe. Still, each of today’s runs were one mile long and 1000 vertical feet.

All of the skiing is pretty much on manmade snow, and that was a wet mix. That means that conditions were pretty firm, with steeper sections getting scraped off pretty quickly. The upside to that firmness is that it held up well to skier traffic. Sometimes that early season traffic wears the snowpack right down into the decomposed granite. Coverage was good enough that I brought out the brand-new Bob Ross “Joy of Skiing” skis from J Skis. This is good as they have brand new edges. Honestly I have been afraid to even look at my QSTs after the July summer ski sessions!

I am a skiing addict, there is no doubt about that. I’ve skied my first day at Mount Rose many times in the last twenty years. I’ve done full days on old Ponderosa Lift, which was the only lift in Tahoe that was slower than the old Hot Wheels chair at Alpine Meadows. I’ve even done a full day on the magic carpet at Rose to start off my season. Skiing brings me joy just about anywhere, making those Bob Ross skis very apropos.

There’s A Couple Of Downers To Mention

I wanted to make my own mention about the tragic accidental death of Brian Gimbert at Alpine Meadows this week. I am not here to talk about the details about what happened or why. I do want to make sure you understand what a loss this is to the Alpine Meadows community. Gimbert, aged 34, was the same age as my son and went to school at North Tahoe high school. They definitely ran in the same circles, with several mutual friends. Brian was not a guy that most of you would recognize if you saw him at Alpine Meadows. All of Brian’s work was “back of the house”, or those behind the scenes things you don’t see happening. If you have ever enjoyed ultra smooth grooming in Alpine Bowl, that may have been Brian’s work. If you appreciate the parking lot being clear at 7am on a powder day, that may have been Brian’s work. That manmade snow we will likely be skiing on soon…also thanks, in part, to Brian. If you ever saw Brian, it was likely in the line at Treats, grabbing breakfast after a long shift of prepping the ski area for another day. Brian will be sorely missed at Alpine Meadows. May his afterlife be full of powder day skiing and Grateful Dead tunes.

Then there is the tragic disappearance of that storm I mentioned in my last post. It’s basically not much of anything anymore. I am so glad that I cautioned you at that time that I was seeing signs that the storm could stay off shore and never bring much snow to the Sierra. That is exactly what did happen. That low pressure system became a “cutoff low”, which is one of the most difficult forecasts in meteorology. I watched the local TV weather people hype the storm late last week, suggesting the cutoff low could sit off the coast, sending endless waves of snow into the Sierra. But this is not last season. What I started seeing on Friday was the low drifting down the coast, having little or no impact on Tahoe. That is what happened several times last fall.

The PNA index stays weakly negative as we head toward the end of November. That’s not a pattern that brings us strong storms. But it does mean that we hopefully can stay on the cooler side of things, and get some mixing of the atmosphere that will prevent strong inversions. That will allow snowmakers to continue to do the work of getting the mountain open without help from Mother Nature.

Buried Makes It To Netflix

The movie Buried: The 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche is now available on Netflix. The film was created by Alpine Meadows locals Jared Drake and Steven Siig. The movie had a long run at the Tahoe City Arthaus, and a limited run in more widespread theaters last year. It was then made available, as a paid streaming version, on Amazon and Apple TV. The release of the film on Netflix makes it more available to a mass audience. It’s quite the story, involving heroes that did not make it, as well as some that still ski at Alpine Meadows. If you don’t know about that avalanche, read my piece published on the 40th anniversary, then watch the movie at Netflix.

The Parking Debate:Throwing Shade

The hullabaloo over paid parking and parking reservations becoming “the norm” at ski areas in the US continues. The other day I saw that Magic Mountain, a ski area in Vermont, threw some shade at the mega resorts with this tweet:

Yeah that cracked me up, but really hats off to those smaller resorts that are standing up to the “big guys”. Alpine Meadows used to be one of those resorts too. (Sadly, Unofficial Networks beat me to the punch in reporting this tweet. I hate it when that happens. When I saw it Friday, I was walking the dogs on Doran Beach, without the means to make a post here.) I do have to include an awesome response, from some unknown person that is obviously living in the future of skiing:

If the weather forecasts continue to be this dismal, traffic and the perceived need for parking reservations will become just a quaint notion this winter. Until the weather changes, hail to the snowmakers of Alpine Meadows and the rest of the Tahoe region. We appreciate your efforts and we will be there to ski it.