I try to be thankful for every day of skiing, even if it’s wet, limited to the bunny slopes, or in today’s case, just short. Fortunately we had already made the decision to be done with skiing today after 5 laps this morning. I was grateful to be out there on the Roundhouse and Hotter Wheel lifts instead of lapping Meadow, which would have been my prediction for today.
But the winds held off for a bit this morning and even the Summit lift operated for about 30 minutes. That said, I was pretty uncertain about the visibility in Alpine Bowl. Pete reported that he had complete vertigo in the middle of the bowl, unsure of what direction he was skiing. It turns out he was completely stopped. Hearing that made me happy we chose to spin most of our laps off of Roundhouse.
Yesterday, Andy described the new snow as sensuous, and today it was more velvety. The best skiing was where the new snow was only an inch or so deep on the groomed surfaces. I did take a lap through the poultry zone today and found the off piste to be not very user friendly. The new snow was dense and wind affected, very unlike the champagne powder we enjoyed last weekend.
What caused us to shorten the day so soon was a rapid increase in the amount of wind present. The chairs were swinging rodeo style. You can see that change in the wind speeds right at 10 am. It was actually comical.
Shortly after that, everything went on Patrol Hold, due to an avalanche next door on KT-22, which I covered in a separate post today. That was certainly not a great thing for those that had just driven into the parking lot from West Sacramento, hoping to catch some powder turns. I have also had those days, arriving at the resort to wait for lift to spin, and then to get zonked, going home without even one turn completed. It’s the nature of the sport. Today the key was to arrive early, but that is not the answer every day.
Looking at tomorrow, the snow is still hammering outside. As of this time, only 5 inches of snow has fallen at the base of Alpine Meadows, but the point forecast is still calling for possibly another 18-30 inches by tomorrow morning. Tomorrow is still forecast to be a bluebird day. So all expectations are that it will be a very busy day. Local schools were out on a snow day today and odds are pretty good that they will be tomorrow as snowplows catch up on local roads and neighborhoods.
9 p.m. Update – We are sitting at about 8 inches from this storm so far, which is a far cry from what the Winter Storm Watches were calling for. If you remember, I posted the GEFS ensembles a few days ago that questioned big totals from this storm. The final frames in that GIF did indeed show 6-8 inches for this one, not 20-30 inches. Some people are going to be very disappointed tomorrow as it’s really tapering off already. For terrain expansion, we do need the snow.
The winds have been at essentially hurricane force all day over the ridges, which means that wind loading is going to be problematic. Patrol will have a lot of work on their hands making the mountain safer, and it is without a doubt that today’s incident will be weighing heavily on their minds. Even without that factor, there is a ton of work to do to reset the mountain and make it ready for everyone. “Patience” will be the word of the day tomorrow. Arrive early to get your parking space, then just chill out a bit and understand that the lifts will open possibly a bit slower than usual.
The Weekend Ahead
Another storm is on tap Friday into Saturday, and if anything some of the models are pumping up the possibilities of another 2-3 feet at the crest. That storm does look slightly warmer, with snow levels running 6-7k feet. That could ease travel just a bit and it will also bring a denser snow that is required to get Lakeview and Sherwood into play sooner. Things look a bit drier Sunday and into next week at the moment.
It’s going to be busy. It’s a three day weekend, and the media has been hyping up the Tahoe snowfall and terrain expansion. Which leads us to talking about parking. For the second weekend in a row, all “free” reserved parking is gone for the upcoming weekend. There’s still unanswered questions as to the ratios of “free” spaces allocated versus “paid” spaces. I wish we could have some transparency there. At least in previous seasons we could see that visual by the cone placement for paid parking in Lot 1.
Update: A very credible source puts the number of spaces reserved for “paid parking” at around 300 out of roughly 1600.
It looks like Palisades Tahoe is doubling down on the reserved parking idea. When things were first announced, it was roughly 18 weekends, plus the week between Christmas and New Years, and just a few other holiday Mondays. The parking reservation page indicates that two new complete weeks have now been added for reservations: all of Presidents Week and the traditional “spring break” week before Easter Sunday. That is not a trend I like, just adding more days in, especially when the jury is really out on how much this whole thing is helping with traffic and parking.
See you out there tomorrow…
Required parking reservations for Presidents Week has been on my calendar since the beginning of the season
Beginning of the season…maybe so. When the program was announced in September…don’t think so. Sadly Archive.org did not archive that particular web page.
First it was the Ikon 4/20 early purchase deadline prior to the paid parking announcement. Now it is requiring paid parking reservations on different dates from what was originally announced. Something had to change, but this rollout has not exactly been smooth.