Hello Skiers and Boarders,
I admit that I am spoiled living in Alpine Meadows, only a mile from the slopes. It is easy for me to climb onto a chair lift and check out conditions first thing in the morning. Thus far this year there have been many days when my minimum chair ride requirement of five rides has been met by 10:30. Today was another one of those days.
Our first turns off Roundhouse Chair were really pleasant. The one or two inches of new snow we received overnight was soft underfoot and felt wonderful.
One of our better runs turned out to be in the East Creek area off TLC. Small moguls with just enough new snow on them to make turning slowly over and between the moguls enjoyable.
The combination of too many skiers and boarders on minimal available terrain, low light from cloud cover that sank into Alpine Bowl, knowledge of the terrain from yesterday where bushes, rocks, and tree tops waited on the sides of moguls to snag a ski edge, sent me home early. Hopefully, those who stayed for the late morning and early afternoon found better lighting making the upper mountain more friendly. Flat light, firm snow, moguls, and unseen obstacles tore me off the slope. I rode the chair with someone who was enjoying skiing because her expectations were low to begin with and thus just being on the slope was a blessing.
I just spoke to a friends who skied Shirley Lake this morning with clear lenses to help navigate the flat light. and they reported the skiing to be excellent. They claim to have enjoyed two hours making tracks in fresh snow.
Snowmaking guns were blasting at the base area in hopes of covering the path from Sandy’s Corner to the base of Summit Chair (ed. note West Runout). This will eliminate the current need to ski around the base of Roundhouse Chair to return to Summit Chair. In addition, we noticed snowmaking guns set up to be used to make snow on Charity. Maybe this trail will open some day soon to help disperse skiers.
It hard to believe that tomorrow is the end of 2023. 2023 has been an interesting year. More snow than we could deal with in the beginning of the year and less snow than we hope for at the end of year. Let’s hope that 2024 starts out with a bang, or should I say a big snow storm.
Enjoy your day,
Andy
I am grateful that I have had a chance to get to 46 days in so far in this very limited season. I’m cutting days short this week as it has been frightfully busy once you get past 10:30 am. It’s been nice to have some off piste skiing again. I’ll take a deeper look at the potential for more snow tomorrow.
I received a notification this afternoon that Summit was on mechanical hold. I wonder what the slopes and lines looked like with Summit not running. I think an early halt to skiing this morning was the right call.
The lift lines were not bad except for the brief surge to Roundhouse the two times Summit closed. However, it did make for extra crowded runs. Late in the day there were multiple people ignoring the closed signs on Ladies Slalom and being greeted by patrol at the bottom.
I got to participate in summit hold for 30 minutes half way up. Cold. My reward was a 50% off ticket. Not much use for pass holder. Would have preferred food voucher. Any good ideas on how to monetize this voucher. ?
Good information to know.