Endless Loop

You guessed it. It was another snowy morning, turning to soggy as temperatures warmed. After a one day reprieve with blue skies yesterday, we were back into the effects of a Pacific cutoff low today. So overall, today skied somewhat like Monday. With Summit again enshrouded in a fog bank, we headed directly to Scott. Conditions there were not quite as nice as Monday, as the top of Bobby’s and Ridge were wind scoured. But once you reached the velvet stage, it was excellent high speed cruising.

We also found that Red Ridge and Ladies Slalom offered some very nice velvety turns where they had been groomed on the first shift, then had an early morning snow deposit. Eventually I got somewhat bored and needed to find something off piste to ski. The poultry zone was not the right location today, due to just enough traffic to leave some ruts and chunder under the new snow. My actual “run of the day” was Yellow. The key was to stay right in the higher traffic lines that had been scraped smooth yesterday. With a couple of inches of new snow over the smooth bumps it was very fun. Then the snow turned to a drizzle, and that new snow turned into small piles of concrete in the troughs between the moguls.

That’s about the time that I realized that my gloves were soaked, my buff was soaked and my hair was wet from water dripping onto my helmet on chair rides. We called it shortly after 11:15. So it was another “it was good till it wasn’t” sort of day.

Thoughts About Sherwood

The messaging is still confusing about Sherwood. On one hand the official operations blog claimed on Monday that “a couple of feet of snow is needed to open Lakeview and Sherwood”, then they doubled down on that statement yesterday:

Here’s the thing. We don’t own the mountain, and we don’t get to make the decisions about how it going to be run. If they want to not open terrain, they get to make that decision.

But I don’t like being gas lit, and neither should you. A reader pointed out Monday that in the low snow season of 2014-15, Sherwood opened in late December with 18″ of snow showing on the Ward Creek SnoTel cite. Currently it shows 38″ of snow. I would agree that the pack is a bit thin, but there is also a lot of opportunities for farming snow at Sherwood, and that has been done many times. It’s just a matter of committing to doing the work. It may not be the best conditions, but it’s better than overcrowded slopes that lead to accidents. Here’s Sherwood Face on December 31st, 2014:

The Race For Parking

Yes, I did secure my parking reservations for the upcoming weekend. But each week it becomes a bit more difficult, and I only see that escalating. Back when we started reserving parking at the beginning of December, you could be so leisurely, knowing that reservations likely would never run out. But as the season has gone on, and having seen just a couple of powder days, FOMO is driving a race for parking reservations.

It started two weeks ago, when I first noticed there was a bit of a delay when I was reserving at 12:03 pm on a Tuesday. Then we saw that free reservations actually sold out within an hour or two. Then last week, the delays on the reservations website got even longer as everyone dropped their work and jumped on their preferred device to make a reservation, all at once. Yesterday, it was not just a delay, there were full on hiccups and glitches. The parking website reported errors in making a reservation, then couldn’t locate the plate number associated with my account, or asked for my parking code when I was looking for a free reservation. After about 6 minutes of nervousness, I finally managed to reserve two days for the weekend…a non-holiday weekend, where rain is in the forecast.

This is a system that is not good for our mental health, nor is it good for the industry. This race for parking reservations is only going to escalate. Reading the ski forums, Crystal Mountain is a case in point. The free reservations each weekend are now gone in literally the first minute. Those that are planning to ski that weekend for sure are then left to choose to pay for a reservation, or spend the rest of the week constantly checking the website for a cancellation, somewhat like a meth addict constantly looking for their next fix. The other choice is just to stop planning ski trips. I can’t normalize a world where cheap passes are oversold, then access is controlled via parking reservations. I’ll say it again, public transportation is a non-starter for anyone that wants to get to Alpine Meadows.

The weird thing is that there is not a big secondary market for parking reservations, as they generally cannot be transferred easily. Even changing a reservation to someone else’s license plate is often not possible, as one license plate cannot be used for multiple accounts. So people are making these reservations just because of FOMO, asking themselves “What if the big storm materializes and I don’t have a reservation?” To date, I am unaware of anyone actually being penalized in any way for not showing up. No, instead they made it easier for people to cancel at the last minute by changing the cancellation time to 9am instead of 8am.

It’s a kludge. Fixing pass sales is a better solution.

Weather And The Dreaded “R” Word

Yes it was wet today, and several other days this week. But what we have seen so far is really not much more than a drizzle fest. We have not had any real rain for a while. That is about to change. Here’s a simple overview of the next 4 days at Alpine Meadows:

Snow levels are expected to reach 8000 to 9000 feet through Saturday. Yesterday, it looked like we might skate by with a minimal chance of rain. Today they are calling for a 60% chance of rain on Saturday. That looks like a wet forecast. I imagine I will be out there skiing, as I am expecting my family to be in town, and they fought hard to get parking reservations.

Just a few days ago, there was a lot of hype about a possible “huge” AR event beginning around the start of February. That hype has already begun to diminish. I think the models are still at about 2-3 days accuracy at this point of winter. We will keep an eye on it.