Surprised And Not Surprised

Wow, now that was a surprise. It was probably the busiest day of the season so far, being a bluebird powder day that fell on a Saturday. Yet I never stood in line more than 5 minutes, with the exception of the initial wait at Roundhouse this morning. Also, we skied all sorts of powder on each run right up until the time we called it about 2pm. If the skiing was so good, why did we call it?

Well, here’s the part I am not surprised by at all. There was a lot of traffic today. Leaving Truckee early has always been clutch. We made it in 34 minutes today. People that left just twenty minutes later reported taking two hours from Truckee to Alpine, including the shuttle ride from Deer Park or Hidden Valley. One friend reported spending 3 hours from the western end of Reno. No, the parking reservations have not really solved the traffic problem. But people that had drunk the Koolaid and left later found out that it was still a problem. Combine that with the fact that a large percentage of people have already made the decision to skip Sunday, and you can predict that Highway 89 will be a parking lot this evening. We wanted no part of that. The backup was already beginning at 2:15.

Our efforts today focused on Scott, then Sherwood. I never made it to Summit today and that is okay. It looks like High Traverse did open today and I think I heard a kid in the locker room say his team went to Bernies (which is not verified). Summit was the one place with a significant line, and I was happy to leave it to the weekend crowd.

We enjoyed two amazing laps of Gentian Gully right off the bat, enjoying light powder that ranged from boot top deep to knee deep. Then we headed to Sherwood, spending most of our time lapping Reily’s Run, the nearby WTF and the surrounding trees. It’s an odd situation where the terrain is open, but without Lakeview spinning or people knowing about Ray’s Rut, most people just weren’t able to figure out how to enjoy that zone, which is right there for everyone to see. As of today, Ray’s Rut is just a single track, not yet groomed. Many a snowboarder post-holing that path today probably considered their life choices today.

All photos below by Reese:

Letting The Cat Out Of The Bag

Yesterday, there was some discussion on Andy’s post regarding our choice to not “let the cat out of the bag” for some of the more secretive runs at Alpine Meadows. The initial comment indicated that we were just a small blog directed at a small group of Alpine Meadows skiers and riders. The thing is, that is no longer the case. Factors like the Ikon pass and the Base To Base gondola, and just good honest reporting means that our audience has grown a lot just in the last few years, somewhere on the order of 2000%. Our reader base now includes people from across the country as well as a handful of international readers. When we publish our reports, we have to make a decision about whether or not this is something we want shared with an ever growing audience.

Currently, our working policy is to talk freely about anything that is on the map as an official run, or terrain that is right there and easy to see. A case in point would be my mentioning WTF, which was recently recut below Return Road. It’s right there to see, and when we took our first run there today, immediately 5 people followed us down. In some cases, things we have talked about here are no longer a secret at all, and that terrain now gets trashed pretty quickly as knowledge is now widespread. Powerline would be a good example of that phenomenon. Sorry Larry.

We hope you understand that position, and as the owner and primary editor of Unofficial Alpine, I will do our best to spread a love for this mountain – without hot-spotting all of its secrets.

The Big Storm And Beyond

That big storm that has been on the horizon is now right on our doorstep. Relative to the other storms we have seen until this week, it is a doozy. Here’s the quick recap from the Winter Storm Warning from the Reno office of NOAA:

…WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 10 PM THIS EVENING TO 10 AM PST MONDAY… * WHAT…Heavy snow. Snow accumulations 1 to 3 feet for Lake Tahoe and eastern Sierra communities below 7000 feet, except up to 6 inches for areas below 5500 feet in Mono County, and 3 to 5 feet above 7000 feet. Winds gusting as high as 100 mph along Sierra ridges, with gusts of 35 to 55 mph in the lower elevations.

In the long run, this is excellent news for eventually getting the mountain fully open. Vast parts of it were open today and that really is what made a very busy day tolerable. People had room to spread out, rather than being contained on groomed terrain on a small portion of the mountain. But Lakeview would be an awesome addition to our mountain experience. Better coverage in areas like Gunners Knob, the Promised Land, Poma Rocks and many other places would really help us enjoy all of our favorite places. Three to five feet of snow would be amazing!

In the short run, it’s going to be a challenging time for the Mountain Ops team and mountain visitors. Snowfall rates up to 3 inches per hour, combined with high winds will make travel to and from the mountain challenging, if not impossible. If anything, keep your expectations low for mountain operations. Looking at similar storms, it could be a Meadow only day or a Big Carpet only day. That said, the last time I said that, it turned into a great day. If the storm comes in exactly as advertised, operations on Monday will still be a challenge as teams work to rebuild ramps and roads, reset all rope lines and signage and move tower pads up the towers. I would not expect that Lakeview could be ready any sooner than Thursday or Friday…be patient.

If you’re planning on driving over Donner Summit tomorrow, what are you doing reading this post? You should be hitting the road tonight, or make a plan to leave late Monday.

A smaller system is on tap Thursday into Friday of next week. Right now it looks like a minor addition to the snowpack, but that could change over time. In the longer term, things get very quiet in the weather toward mid February.

See you out there tomorrow…I think.