Our mountain looked extraordinary this morning as it sat bathed in bright sunshine. A small amount of fresh snow lay sparkling between yesterday’s skier tracks. A couple of inches of snow fell overnight filling divots, and adding a thin layer of snow to areas untouched by yesterday’s crowd.
I found terrain that collected snow blown into it’s natural half pipe feature adjacent to Werner’s Schuss to be just lovely. Enough snow had collected to retain a soft feel to the surface most of the way down from the top of Roundhouse.
Other slopes, where the underlayment was well frozen, offered a noisy, and much rougher ride, as I skied over chicken heads and sideslipped down the back sides of moguls. The amount of snow we received over the last couple of days did not add up to enough to completely cover the well frozen surface that formed a few days ago when the air was warm and it felt like spring.
West Palisades was well skied yesterday and skied reasonably well today. It was a combination of soft snow interspersed between smooth patches of ice. The idea for today was to find slopes that were free of yesterday’s tracks. We found short spaces that fit the bill and making fresh turns possible. Some of these were between tightly spaced trees near the Sherwood Lift. The most enjoyable turns I made were over low angle untouched slopes. There were a large number of skiers and boarders hiking over Keyhole to taste the snow in the Low Saddle or on the steeper slopes of Keyhole and Open Slope. I spoke to at least one person who raved about the turns in Lower Beaver Bowl.
I can tell you that we did not enjoy turns in Zero Chute that is accessed via the Sherwood Lift. We were there before noon and found the underlying surface to be frozen and very rough. We viewed a number of skiers and snowboarders trying South Face and the Sherwood Face. My guess is that they were interesting, but not memorable.
Thus, today was a day to look for pockets of deeper and softer snow instead of hunting out steeper, previously well skied, trails. Some areas may have softened early in the afternoon, but we were heading in to catch up on chores before attempting to ski them.
One more time: Happy Birthday Randy. From your friends at UA.
Enjoy you day,
Andy
Did anyone else notice the sign on the Summit chair board explaining why the ridge hikes weren’t open? Something about it being spring and farming snow in anticipation of corn snow and some other “dog ate my homework “ nonsense. Disappointing.
I also saw the sign. But I think it’s the right move. The new snow got rapidly cooked by the sun today. Even though the temps were cold, the solar radiation cooks the snow quickly. Allowing that terrain to open today would have turned all of that snow into frozen chunder that would not be pleasant at all for weeks to come. Instead, keeping that terrain closed for a few days will allow for the snow to corn up. Once that happens it can offer good spring skiing for weeks. Props to Patrol for making that call today.
Didn’t see the sign, but was also incredibly disappointed! Why no High T??!! You could side step half way up to F tree from the south face entrance, and make your way as far as you wanted. Just didn’t make any sense yesterday!!
It made sense because many days of smooth 🌽 is better than a run or two of heavy powder that turns to chunder.
It didn’t seem to make sense to the family I chatted with while riding summit. First time at alpine meadows, beautiful sunny day with a few inches of fresh snow, and only half the skiable terrain open. Maybe makes sense to the everyday skier, not so much to the people that only have very limited days available to ski.
Hike closures are only about a 30% acreage closure, not 50%, to be fair. Sure it’s a bummer if it’s the day you have to come ski, but thinking “looks fine to me” is a counter argument to the decisions made from the likely over 100 person-years of terrain management knowledge in patrol is ignorance bordering on entitlement.
“Nonsense”? Not even. This is what patrol has been doing since I started skiing Alpine in ‘76. Hats off to patrol for making the right call!
Agree with patrol closure for the bowls. One hour of powder is not equal to many days of smooth corn. Wish they would do that on High T a bit more often, but understand why they don’t.
What about the past 2 storms where they didn’t open it? It probably makes sense with this storm since there is high pressure coming but the past storms would have been nice.
There a dozen different reasons why patrol opens or closes that terrain. We try not to second guess their decisions.
Ackthuall, I would think entitlement is expecting terrain that is 100% safe and good to ski stay closed in the “hopes” of a corn cycle. People that pay $300 a day to ski should reasonably expect most if not all terrain to be open on a perfectly clear April day. This has nothing to do with questioning patrols decision to keep something closed due to safety concerns.
It’s a good thing you were not here at the beginning of the season to pay $239 to ski on 1.8% of the terrain…you may have been disappointed. One thing I can tell you is to vote with your dollars. There’s five or six other major ski areas in Tahoe to choose from if you’re not happy with this mountain. There’s many of us that keep coming back here because we like how they manage the mountain.