The End Of A Busy Midweek

It’s been a couple of years now that we have been saying that Friday is the new Saturday, and Monday is the new Sunday. This week, every day felt somewhat like a weekend day. This is true due to several factors: “remote work” becoming a norm; STRs making it easy to find a place to stay in Tahoe; the ubiquity of AWD vehicles, and a ginormous number of Ikon passes sold. Then there’s the obvious thing that a lot of snow has fallen lately. It has been a busy at both Alpine Meadows and that other place on the other end of the shiny boxes. It is not a holiday week, nor a major school break, or any special events scheduled. No regulars that I talked to today remember a week like this one.

There’s a new factor at play here, and that is the frustration or inability of people to secure a parking reservation on weekends. Time and time again this week, the conversations on lift rides and in the locker room included “I can’t reserve for a weekend, so I am here now”…or something to that effect. It now dawns on me that this might actually be the purpose of making a really crappy reservation system. It pushes more people off the weekends and turns them into midweek skiers. If you can fill your mountain on weekend and then keep it mostly full midweek, you have achieved what many ski area owners have dreamed of for years. So here we are…

Fortunately, we entered a new stage today at Alpine Meadows with the opening of the Lakeview lift. Today was the first day of the season where 100% of the terrain at Alpine Meadows was open. Tomorrow marks the first day of the season where there is potential to have 100% of the terrain and 100% of the lifts operating. We have said it before, the mountain can handle the load of full parking lots when it is entirely open. The lines don’t get atrociously long at all lifts at the same time, and with all terrain available, it’s easy to select a quieter part of the mountain.

All of the mountain was skiing well today, or at least 99% of it. Every once in a while I could find an icy mogul sticking up, or a spot of sun baked snow, but they were a rarity. It was just a matter of choosing your favorite part of the mountain. Of course, my day started with a quick run to Lakeview, to catch some laps there before the lines got long, and to catch the lake view, of course.

There were some ungroomed areas of Lakeview available. Twilight Zone, Scotty’s and many of the tree zones held some leftover powder skiing, as did Outer Outer. Many liked it. I was one of the few naysayers, having been spoiled by exceptionally great powder skiing over the last week. My cup of tea was the long and consistent pitch of corduroy on Outer Limits, which was entertaining for a couple of laps until the line overflowed the mazes at Lakeview. Honestly, this may have been the best part of Lakeview this morning in that it took people away from the front of the mountain, where the skiing was probably better. More lifts open on the mountain to spread people out is always awesome.

Visbility on the mountain was variable. It started overcast with flat light, then a sucker hole opened up and brought light here and there. Generally speaking, the further from the crest you got, the better the lighting was. As it did yesterday, the clouds built in the afternoon. There’s snow showers falling as I write this post.

Prepare For Some Bitter Cold Tomorrow

We have the mostly dry front passing through today, and on the backside of the low, we will be seeing a strong northeast wind event pumping cold air into the Tahoe region tomorrow. There also could be very cloudy skies to go with that. Here’s the point forecast for mid-mountain for Saturday:

Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 27. Wind chill values as low as -1. Blustery, with an east wind 18 to 26 mph, with gusts as high as 38 mph.

Hopefully those winds stay mostly in the north and not so much east, as that could affect Summit operations or ABC operations. The cold temperatures will be a challenge for those not prepared. But those same colder temperatures and cloudy skies do a lot for keeping the snow quality amazing. But tomorrow is a good day to prepare for very cold conditions. Buff √ Hot Hands √ Extra layer √

By Sunday, a ridge starts to build in, bringing some warming and less wind. Theoretically, it will be slightly less busy due to the Super Bowl. Since the game includes the 49ers, I would forecast a greater than normal chance of Super Bowl watch parties distracting people from skiing.

Warming will continue into the middle of next week before we even start to see a significant chance of storms. Then we swing back into a wetter pattern. I looked at the last ten model runs of the GEFS ensembles and they are showing some impressive numbers for snowfall by Monday the 19th. Another 2 foot is a reasonable quick guess, but we are still ten days out. I am not trying to add to the hype here, but the signaling is fairly strong here.

The longer range CFS is calling for a a greater than average chance of more snow as we head into the last week of February…we shall see. Let’s get through this week, then Super Tuesday, before we start thinking about that.