After skiing in near hurricane winds that closed most of the mountain down early in the morning yesterday, I felt relieved to be walking out of the locker room into bright sunshine and still air. There were a couple of times that I was not sure we would make it to the top of Roundhouse or TLC yesterday, as the extremely strong winds nearly tore me off the chair. This was a good reminder to lower the safety bar when riding a chairlift. Today winds were not an issue.
It did not snow overnight at Alpine, yet there were deposits of new snow in the troughs of mogul fields, and on some lower angle slopes. This new looking snow did not drop from the sky, but was most likely wind driven to it final resting place. The grooming crew did another excellent job of smoothing out many trails on the mountain. These lovely, but generally very firm, groomed trails offered a nice corduroy finish for our warm up runs.
The high winds from yesterday blew snow onto some steeper slopes creating a thin smooth surface. However, we had to pick and choose the areas that looked smooth to take advantage of these conditions. Very firm, even icy, conditions existed in many areas where the snow deposited by yesterday’s winds did not stick to the mountain sides. Thus, corduroy, wind buff, and hard bumpy conditions were those present first thing this morning.
North facing slopes where snow was deposited in mogul troughs were the best. We made a number of trips through Pygmy Forest, Lower Palisades, and Lower Yellow Face/Gully. Soft winter snow met the bottom of our skis in these areas. D7 was very good, even though the moguls were firm at the top and rather large. Waterfall was actually very good as the gully was filled with winter snow from the overnight winds, but lower down on Kangaroo Ridge the surface changed to very firm.
I did not venture over to Sherwood, but Mark and his crew did ski at Sherwood. They reported very nice conditions on the Robin Hood Trail. According to Mark spring conditions existed with a hint of corn snow. These conditions existed after 11am. Not every trail was soft and beautiful at Sherwood. Some of them were still pretty firm before noon. Bobby’s Trail off Scott was turning soft just before noon, but I heard that Lakeview was still pretty firm. Temperatures rose to 40 degrees at the base this afternoon and just above freezing at the summit.
Hey Ann, nice job today negotiating the terrain non-groomed slopes.
Today was a very nice day to be on the mountain. Tomorrow is supposed to be another lovely day.
Enjoy your day,
Andy
It did snow about 1/2” in Tahoma last night.
That was the official report for Alpine Meadows overnight as well. It sounds better if you say 12.7 millimeters.
very good report that I’d agree with unlike what you’d hear from from other sources!
I was at the other side (OV) today. You say for steeper runs were:
“Very firm, even icy, conditions existed in many areas where the snow deposited by yesterday’s winds”
I found the same. The steeper shaded runs like the Funnel & some of Granite Chief were nice with silky snow surface and no ice. . Headwall was probably nice from top but I kind of wimped out & cut into Headwall half way down off Hogsback. heading skiers right off Headwall was a minefield -almost unskiable. The fierce wind shaved the snow into hard blocks with hard vertical walls a foot high that you had to ski thru. Never saw this before & it looked like Avy debris. Sunny & calm before the Thur- Fri megastorm.