That statement would cover about 50% of what I know about the vernacular of tweens on TikTok. It basically means, “Dude, the skiing was not quite as good as I expected today.” There’s a couple of bloggers that have been singing high praise about High Traverse and general spring skiing conditions on the mountain this week. Then Friday rolls around, the unofficial start of the weekend, and High Traverse did not open today. We attributed that to the slightly higher overnight temperatures, but it turns out, that was not the case. More on that later…
Yes, there were a bunch of groans and shrugs upon exiting the Summit chair shortly after nine this morning. High Traverse was awfully good this week. How would we survive? The honest truth is that it was no big deal. In fact I will dare to say it might have been better. We hot lapped Summit three or four laps and I would venture that with perfect grooming and just the right amount of softness, it skied even smoother than CB Chute yesterday. Truth be told, the sun cups have been growing over there, just a little bit bigger each day. The only way to keep sun cups in control is to groom them out or ski them out. But with warm temperatures this week, High Traverse has only been open about 90 minutes a day. Then it closes to prevent ruts. But that short open period is not enough skiing to keep the sun cups in check. So I will say it again, the Summit groomers probably skied better this morning than a lap on High T.
That said, the “wilderness type” experience that is a part of High Traverse does not happen on the Summit groomers. Then again, I think back to the stampede up to Upper Saddle the last two mornings, which is not at all the experience I want. People have been trying to blame myself and Andy for this phenomenon. But this has been happening every time High Traverse opens…work from home, shiny boxes, more skiers pushing into midweek…they all matter. I mention Chute Zero all of the time and I see no stampedes headed there!
Scott, I Am So Sorry!
Without High Traverse open, a different route to Sherwood was needed today. So a pack of us headed to Hotter Wheels to make the jump to the Sherwood side, as Chute Zero has been very good. The conversations were very engaging and having ridden Hotter Wheels so much this year, we were all on autopilot. I noted one of my favorite liftees, Scott, at the mid-ramp and got distracted, being that he is normally at Roundhouse. That’s when Scott was forced to hit the big red STOP button and point to the “Top Is Closed” sign. We had to do the Jump Of Shame, as we were about two feet off the ground at that point. Sorry Scott!
Call me a stupid head, but in my defense, the tweet this morning had Sherwood on the schedule. There was no tweet or notification that Sherwood was on a maintenance hold until 12:20 today. I’m use to getting two notifications for everything, one from Twitter and one from the Palisades Tahoe app. Mistakes were made. No Sherwood today due to electrical issues. According to the latest official operations blog, the plan is to run Sherwood until closing day, conditions permitting.
The actual skiing and riding was very good today, and not having Sherwood or Lakeview forces me to get more creative and use more of the mountain. We ended up doing several laps of Palisades to Medium Yellow, as slush bumps are really fun. Throwing in some Hot Wheels Gully along the way, what’s not to like? Well that would be the stickiness on runouts due to the slightly warmer temperatures overnight and today.
Weather and Conditions Permitting
Looking ahead at the weather, the next few days are going to be challenging as the nights and days get even a few degrees warmer. That potentially will cause more stickiness and keep the ridges closed not just to protect the corn, but also due to possible wet slides. Arrive at the mountain early and get your turns in early. Look for that shadier terrain to last longer. Plan a bike ride or a kayak on the lake for later in the day. We took our first ride of the season out to Martis Lake yesterday afternoon and it was delightful, certainly better than fighting sticky snow. It is dual sport time of the year and that is okay.
Next week, there is still an advertised cool down, starting around Tuesday. The models are still holding out for an inch or two of snow around Thursday, but that keeps getting trimmed down. Colder temperatures will bring back consolidation to the snowpack and allow for longer ski days as we head into closing weekend. As long as we only get an inch or two of snow, it won’t affect the corn cycle much. Please don’t be more than that!
Looking at the snowpack, it goes fast this time of year. My yard is 100% free of snow after this week, and that applies to just about all of downtown Truckee and the 89 corridor. Looking at the remote sensor data for the bottom of Roundhouse, during our last storm, the total snowpack was around 103 inches. Today it is reading 86 inches. It does not take long when temperatures are this warm. You can imagine it is going even faster over at Sherwood.
The big boss, Jeff Goldstone, confirmed today that Sunday is the last day for the Scott lift. Tree cutting is about done at Lakeview and needs to shift to Scott. I need to spend some serious time on Scott the next two days before it is gone!
See you out there.
skibidi
🤣
Today a guy name Mike left a nice comment on the epic Sixty Years Of Progression At Alpine Meadows post, referring to the “ski area” vibe of old time Bachelor and June, which Alpine Meadows mercifully still has. That comment made me finally realize why this skiing aficionado who grew up skiing Alpine in the late 1960s-early ’80s occasionally sees fit to bring up his current home mountain near Flagstaff, Arizona. In its own sunny-outlook way, Snowbowl — which I visit all too infrequently because my permanent home is in a beach town in Mexico — still has that “ski area” vibe that a lot of ski areas had before they became profit-generating “properties” of hedge fund bean-counters. Anyway, I received an email today saying that Snowbowl extended its season until May 5. Counterintuitively, this ski area where my new skis became “rock skis” during late-January skiing, that eked out all of 251″ of snowfall this season (normal=260″), and is almost as far south as Santa Barbara is staying open a week later in the year than Alpine Meadows, complete with its own set of live music shows to wrap up the season and a base of scarcely 5 1/2 feet that no doubt is rapidly disappearing. I get that whatever may be happening in far-away Arizona my be quite irrelevant to most readers here, but at least join me in rejoicing the fact that in 2024 there exists a mountain far from the nearest major airport and “out-of-boot experience” prerogatives that still offers its guests a “ski resort” vibe.
We skied until 1 hitting Palisades and Medium Yellow, both were very good. The Face and Peter’s Peril (awesome if you love really soft moguls), and Gunner’s Knob. Bobby’s and Ridge were just right. Never made it to Sherwood.
Sticky on the flat runs, but north facing shaded areas stayed good all morning.
Interesting post, I think most of the people just love skiing and aren’t trying to rub anything in any Faces. Thank you Mark and Andy for providing all the knowledge you have on such a beautiful ski area.