Remember Kids, It’s Not Even Thanksgiving Yet

It was another day with some very nice ski conditions at Alpine Meadows. The coverage in the area served by the TLC is really quite great and the skiing & riding is fun. While we have not seen any huge expansion of terrain just yet, each day Ski Patrol has pushed the boundary lines a bit farther out. Today those lines went all of the way from East Creek to Hot Wheels Gully. That gave some room to get away from the more busy groomed runs. Since the nature of this year’s snow has been on the wetter side, the underlaying rocks and other base ruiners are fairly well locked up.

The new snow started falling earlier than expected today. NOAA had pushed the Winter Storm Warning out to 1pm overnight, but it was already snowing by 8am this morning and they ended up retracting the delay. There was an inch or two of new snow to soften things up by the time the lifts rolled at 9am. The lines were shorter than they were over the weekend, but eventually the corral did fill in with help from the shiny boxes. Still, it was entirely bearable. People like to ski for Thanksgiving, it’s always been that way in my family.

Terrain Expansions Are Coming

If all goes well, we should see some skiing on other lifts soon at Alpine Meadows. There’s a number of signs that we have been noticing around the mountain:

• Patrollers have been taking some laps on the upper section of the TLC lift the last two days. The best guess is they are assessing whether or not they can open Hidden Knolls, Art’s Knob, Expert Shortcut and possibly the top section of Sherwood Run looping back to Weasel Saddle. The other explanation is that the patrollers are just out having some fun and I am totally okay with that too.

• The mountain ops team has been very active in blowing snow at the top of Roundhouse and moving that snow around, with a focus on Rock Garden and Dance Floor (aka Red Trail). The West Runout back to Roundhouse is looking narrow but workable, as is the Weasel One return to the TLC zone. My guess is we will see this by Wednesday. I would not expect a general opening of all terrain off of Roundhouse yet.

• Based on the clientele that is arriving in town this week, there’s a need for lessons. Meadow still needs some love at the base, but it looks close. The magic carpets are also very close.

• The birds are also chattering about the potential for Summit by Thanksgiving and we would all be thankful for that. There was a large pile of snow recovered from the parking lot, which is typically used for building out load platforms for all lifts at the base area. This morning that larger pile was stacked in front of Summit. Also heard that if Summit opened, it would likely be in a wild ungroomed state for advanced and experts skiers only. The question is whether or not enough snow falls in this storm to make it less risky. The advantage to all of us is that getting that snow “skier packed” will make sure it doesn’t get erased as easily by an east wind event. Best guess is that if it happens, West Runout will not be ready, so all access would be from below Roundhouse.

This would be pretty exciting news. I spent some time looking back at the dates that Summit has opened over the last decade and here is what I found:

Yes, Summit has only opened once during the month of November in the last decade, and that was on the last day of November. So getting Summit open this week would be a rare treat. We hope it happens and we know the mountain ops wants to make it so as well.

The other subject of chatter this week has been the other side of the ridge over at Palisades. Multiple sources have said this week that there is a mechanical issue with the Funitel that requires a part that is likely the cause for delays on the upper mountain. There’s also been some winds that were problematic. Two different sources mentioned Wednesday as a possible date when that might get resolved. There was a lot of work being done on Champs Elysees yesterday morning, and we also saw that they had built the road to the top of KT-22. So good things are on the way over at Palisades too.

Weather….It’s Not Looking Pretty

After this storm we enter what looks to be a significant dry slot. In layman’s terms, we likely will return to a dual sport season where we can go skiing in the morning and go bike riding in the afternoons. We are going to be under the influence of a very significant high pressure ridge. This feature has been there for pretty much every model run over the last three days. We’re in a zonal flow today as the transition from a trough to a ridge happens. Here’s a GIF showing the 500mb air pressure anomaly. Red indicates higher than average pressures, blue means lower than average pressure.

Wow, I don’t recall seeing the red color so dark that it resembles black! That would be a very strong ridge. I would not panic just yet. Ten days ago it looked like we would see extensive ridging and then it suddenly flipped to three strong AR events in a row. For now, teams should be able to continue blowing snow at night, although if this pattern does materialize it would result in likely inversions.

I could just fret about this and lament the lack of powder days, but I won’t. I’m feeling thankful and I am just going to go skiing and enjoy whatever is out there. It’s what I do. Feel free to use your Ikon pass to chase powder or pursue other activities. Otherwise, we will see you out there on whatever lift is spinning.