Good, But Not A True Powder Day

Yes indeed, the snow came in with a bit more bluster than we have seen yet overnight. By the time the sun came up this morning, there was about 8 inches of new snow at the base area sensor at Alpine Meadows. The official account was that as much as 15 inches fell near the top of the mountain. But I am here to tell you that if you had FOMO today, it honestly did not feel all that different today compared to the other 12 days I have logged at Alpine Meadows this season. That said, it sure looked a lot more like winter on the mountain this morning.

That amount of new snow that fell was not really enough to open much in the way of new terrain this morning. For the adventurous, Ski Patrol did move the “Closed” markers all of the way to the edge of Skateboard Alley along the creek. After a quick test patch, I did not feel like the quality of the snow warranted risking the potential injury from hidden rocks and small stumps. I’ve been there and done that. Also, the temperatures while snow was falling yesterday was just barely freezing. That, combined with some strong winds, meant that the new layer of snow was quite dense. Snowboarders seemed to be more well suited to those conditions, or those with extra fat skis and extra strength knees. The groomer team seemed to agree, choosing to groom most of the open terrain overnight.

It’s not often that I say this, without being tongue in cheek. The skiing was probably quite a bit better over the hill today off of Gold Coast. The higher elevation probably offered a better quality of new snow, and there was already more of an established base under that new snow. Consequently, there were far more cars turning into Palisades this morning than Alpine Meadows. Hopefully all of those people got a chance to see someone famous over there. The regulars over there were likely happy to see that the shiny boxes were on wind hold today, keeping us Alpine Meadows people on our own side of the mountain.

How About Further Terrain Openings?

There’s several things to report on here. The first being is that the air compressor that has been waiting for a part for two weeks is returning to service soon, if not today. That will return snow making capacity to 100% as long as the water capacity and temperatures allow. If snow makers are operating at 100%, they can use up the stored water more quickly than it can be replenished. That can lead to pauses in snow production. Hopefully those pauses in production can be timed to coordinate with warmer than average temperatures expected this weekend.

Chatting with Mountain Manager Jeff Goldstone yesterday, he indicated that the first plan was to focus snow making on Rock Garden and Weasel One. That would allow skiers to ride Roundhouse and eventually return to the base area via Weasel Run. It’s not ideal as it does increase traffic on Weasel, but it’s a good first step. Otherwise, Goldstone estimated it takes about ten days to make enough snow to open Dance Floor (Red Trail). Fortunately, with the snow that fell last night, that will be a significant help. But getting that open is the next priority. Buffing out Alpine Bowl is further down the line, but it’s looking closer with each passing storm. While the bowl itself looks pretty good at the minute, it takes a lot of snow and cat work to build the required roads and ramps to open Summit. Be patient and grateful for now.

One And Done?

Technically this was not a one and done storm sequence. There’s already a new round of snow falling, there’s just not much of it today. At the high end we could see another four inches of snow by tomorrow morning. Then we get stuck in a more fair weather regime for a bit. Over the last month, I have talked about cut off lows just sort of spinning off the coast of California. That brings us unpredictable and usually weak storms. We now are looking at a “Cutoff High” moving in, bringing us fair weather into next week. The Reno forecast discussion talked about the possibility of temperatures 10-15 degrees more than normal, but I think that is more likely at lower elevations. What makes these systems “cutoff” means that they are not being driven by the jet stream. The weather nerds were excitedly discussing the idea of a “East Asian jet stream” kicking that high pressure out before we can start referring to it as a Ridiculously Resilient Ridge. That could happen around mid-month.

One thing to note is that the weather models have had a very difficult time figuring anything out this season more than 3-5 days ahead of time. Last year we got spoiled as the models got very good at reading the room to figure out what was leading to our constant parade of storms. So don’t worry too much about forecasts calling for dry and warm conditions 10 days out. The models only gave about 48 hours of notice for yesterday’s decent little storm.

Busier Weekends Ahead?

We already commented that it was pretty empty around the ski area last weekend. I would expect that this weekend will be significantly more busy. We know that the television weather forecasters played up this snowfall quite a bit, and Jerry from the Bay Area figures that the whole mountain will finally open with powder galore. If you’re a reader here, you know better. Also, it’s a learn to ski weekend, which is a fantastic time for parents to drop off the kids for their first ski lesson. It will bring more people. That’s good for the sport I guess. It was only a few years ago that we were worried about fewer people going skiing.

After that, we are in to peak season. For the weekend of the 15th-17th, someone thought it would be fun to have a big music event. Then they said “what if we brought in Shaq to DJ?” Tahoe Live looks like it will bring a lot of people to the Palisades Tahoe side. Most of that event is after ski hours, but people will be here, filling parking spaces and local businesses. There’s been some excited chatter on Reddit, mostly from first time visitors. Besides that, some schools do start their winter holiday break that weekend. Hopefully, the mountain ops team can get Summit open by that time…fingers crossed they get some help from Ma Nature.

And Now, It’s Movie Time

There’s a lot of great ski movies out there this season. I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen very many of them yet. But I did note that “Here, Hold My Kid” has been released for streaming by Red Bull. The film stars locals Elyse Saugstad and Jackie Paaso. The two mom’s compete to see who can be the mom that “does it all.” Both of these women can really ski, and the teasers shown this fall looked fun. Fun fact: Jackie Paaso was a coach for the Alpine Meadows Freestyle Team in the early 2000’s. See the movie here.