Spring: How Long Will It Last?

It was another fine spring day at Alpine Meadows. The parking lots were full and some lifts were very busy, but timing and flexibility were everything. The only real lines of consequence today were at Summit and Sherwood, thanks to every lift being open today with no holds of any sort. Using prior experience and the Palisades Tahoe app, it was fairly easy to stay ahead of the crowds and avoid lines.

Without getting too detailed, let’s break down the infographic above:

• South Facing Groomed Runs: This would include everything that is groomed off of Sherwood, Lakeview and Scott. With help of snowcats doing compaction, the quality of the corn is good but not awesome just yet. There’s certainly a growth of crystals and they are offering a mostly smooth surface. Some areas are still getting clumpy as temperatures and traffic increases. Most areas are still getting quite sticky by mid-afternoon. There’s still some free water in the snow.
• South Facing Off Piste Runs: This includes terrain off the same lifts that is not machine groomed. Most of these slopes have not consolidated yet, which is a key component of good corn. There’s a small window each day between coral reef and manky conditions where they ski okay. Places with more skier and rider traffic are more compacted and therefore offer a better experience. That includes areas like Sherwood Face and more popular lines on South Face. By the afternoon hours many of these areas are like glue.
• Other Aspects: Generally speaking, we’re including terrain off of Summit, ABC, Roundhouse and TLC here. The groomed terrain is ripping in the morning hours. Much of that is getting quite sticky in the afternoon hours. In the off piste north facing slopes Such as Palisades and High Yellow, the snow is chalky with limited soft snow, but moguls have been growing, especially after a busy weekend. Non-north facing off piste terrain has a very short window between coral reef and mank.

In the short term, this first week of spring weather will continue through Wednesday and possibly Thursday. As of today, the forecast discussions in most areas of California are talking about a pattern change for the weekend. There is agreement that it will rain and snow. But here we are only 5 days out, and there is almost zero model consistency and agreement. Here’s a GIF of total snowfall expected in the next 7 days. Each run varies from 3 inches of snow up to 36 inches of snow expected.

The Long Term Outlook For Spring?

Nothing official has been announced yet, but I’m starting to hear some chatter this week about a short spring season at Alpine Meadows. Yes, Palisades Tahoe did announce that “we are open until Memorial Day”, but those sorts of announcements rarely contain all of the details about which mountains will run on which days with which lifts in operation. For just about every season since the merger of NAW Valley and Alpine Meadows, that extended season applies only to the other side. Last season was an anomaly due to the Funitel haul rope replacement. Right now, it looks like we’re back to “bean counter normal”. With an ear to the ground and looking at what’s on the schedule, the best guess is that the Alpine Meadows season could be done around April 21 or April 28th. This was kind of my guess way back on February 7th.

I know, as dedicated Alpine Meadows skiers, we know that Alpine Meadows is a much easier mountain to ski during the spring. It’s a short walk from the parking lot to the lodge and lockers. From the lockers it’s a short walk to Summit, which takes you to the top of the mountain for 1600 feet of vertical. There’s no silly faux alpine village to wear down your ski boots, no riding the Funitel or Tram to get to where you can think about getting on a lift that provides actual skiing. We make that argument time and time again.

But some AI robot in Indonesia has already told some bean counter in Denver that the best chance of making any money is to make people stumble through a faux alpine village where they might purchase an overpriced coffee beverage or a sugary sweet waffle. Later in the day, they may stick around and drop a hundred bucks on burgers, nachos and IPAs. Ultimately ski areas are no longer run by people that love to ski, they are run by people that insist on maximizing return for investors. This is where we are, and yes, we don’t like it.

There are some counter arguments to be made here, and in the interest of presenting the other side, I will touch on those. First, this is not a banner year for snowfall, while were are near normal at the top of the mountain, the bottom of the mountain is significantly below due to early season rainfall. Just take a long look at Scott, Lakeview and lower areas of Sherwood and you can see those are going to go quickly as more rock gets exposed. Summit will hold on, but keeping runouts alive once water starts running is a challenge. Due to novelty, we walked to Summit last July. I would question if people would do that in May.

The second thing is that this has not been a banner year economically for ski resorts. It was a very slow start of the season, especially during the critical winter holidays. It’s the boom of these busy periods that generally finances an extended season. Without that boom, resorts are likely to squeak by at meeting their income targets for the year.

Lastly, it was a really long season for Alpine Meadows employees last season, which extended about 6 weeks longer than normal or about 200 days. Many of those employees often rely on the off season to have another job to pay the mortgage and feed the family. Others want to take a well deserved rest and pay attention to their family and take some time for self care. I totally get it. I know as a public school teacher, I was never happy to have to do some extended school year due to snow days. Our need to ski more may not outweigh the desires of the employees that make our mountain experience happen. Myself, at 109 days at Alpine Meadows this season so far, I am not the person to make the case I have not gotten full value for my pass.

That said, don’t start spouting off about “forest service land and agreements” as we know none of that argument means anything, except for the operational calendar for the shiny boxes. Any mention of that is pure and simple gaslighting.

I plan to enjoy this spring season as much as I possibly can and will take what we can get. We had some fun spring weather and conditions and yesterday, music on the Sun Deck with Joy & Madness. Sadly the marketing machine is broken when it comes to events at Alpine Meadows. I heard a rumor that Joy and Madness would be playing Saturday afternoon from an employee. I spent time trying to hunt it down on the PT site, but found nothing. I then went looking for the stairway poster that has always had the details. Instead there was a poster telling me how cool the Ikon pass will make me. Brent Dana, the fellow that books bands for Alpine Meadows rattled off a great list of acts for the coming weekends yesterday. Maybe some one will add it to the official page soon…