What a Thanksgiving Day we had yesterday at Alpine Meadows! In case you somehow missed it during your food coma, here’s the link to Andy’s Report. Due to the effects of many people on the mountain and a little afternoon warming, today was still good, but not as great as yesterday. Again, a huge thank you to everyone on the Alpine Meadows team that gave up a part of their Thanksgiving to get that much of the mountain open.
Tomorrow is likely to be a challenging day at Alpine Meadows, as it will still be handling the bulk of the skier and rider traffic for both mountains. Today was really busy on the main slopes and tomorrow promises to be even more chaotic. Those people that were committed to “We’re going to Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma’s house on Thursday, then going skiing for the weekend” were arriving today. As we pulled out of the parking lot around 1:30 pm, the Friday afternoon arrivals were streaming through the breezeway or circling the upper lots looking for a closer parking space.
The good news is that they will finally be opening the upper mountain over on the Palisades side on Sunday. The official ops blog published today finally mentioned, for the first time, that the funitel gear box is under repair. Somehow they have cracked the code to getting folks up the mountain via WaSheShu and the Tram, and down the mountain via Mountain Run. Hallelujah!
So What Skied Well Today?
Just about everything skied well today, and it was just a matter of what you were really interested in skiing. Off of Summit, the experience is still “ungroomed”. That means that for basically all terrain the question was whether or not you wanted smaller moguls or larger moguls. North facing areas near ABC or in the D Chutes remained in soft winter condition today. One thing that was challenging was that the road you typically use to get there only goes part way across Alpine Bowl, it then divides into about 52 different traverse lines until you get to the ABC chairline. Better skiing lay beyond the chairline for those with the skill for steeper terrain with larger moguls. Also, there is not enough snow pack to cover up the many trees of Pygmy Forest, which are really not that small anymore.
There was a somewhat different experience in the sunnier side of Alpine Bowl, roughly from Tower 20 and over to Sunspot and Solar Flare. The names of those runs are a clue that they get much more sun. An early run down Sunspot this morning was crispy and a little catchy. By 10:30am that “area” softened up a bit and was quite nice. The temperatures were even warmer today, so expect more of the same tomorrow.
The D Chutes and D8 were also lovely today, with the exception that you must be fully committed to moguls. Without grooming in Wolverine Bowl or Werner’s (Blue) it is a mogul fest all of the way back to Sandy’s Corner. Yes there are some areas where the moguls are not as large, but I will not mention any of those details so they don’t become extra large by tomorrow.
Lower on the mountain things were warmer and that meant more of the snow was crispy for much of the morning. Early runs on Red Ridge, Yellow and Ladies Slalom were almost tooth jarring. But they did eventually soften. But mark my words, you will be seeing the word “chunder” in our reports a lot more frequently in the coming days.
For those seeking out groomed terrain, the options are still limited to Rock Garden, Dance Floor, Upper Weasel One and Weasel. Of those, it’s Weasel that is skiing the best. Since the others have only been machine tilled a couple of times, the death cookies are still sizable and they are not my favorite ski condition. On the main Weasel groomer, open now for eight days, the greater number of groomer cycles has broken down the snow and it skied much smoother today than the others.
That said, I really wanted nothing to do with the groomed slopes today as the mix of traffic on those slopes felt hazardous to my health. Mixing World Cup wannabe’s with kids power wedging down the slopes is not a great combo, one that I seek to avoid. I am doing my best to avoid the groomed terrain through this holiday with the exceptions of the runouts to the lifts. Ranking those from worst to not as bad: West Runout to Summit (death defying); East Runout to Roundhouse (terrifying); Tiegel Runout to Roundhouse and TLC (keep your head on a swivel).
That Next Storm
I got nothing.
BA tried to drop some hopium in his last blog, teasing changes in the second week of the forecast. I saw some of those yesterday in the models out well into Fantasyland at day 14-16. But I just studied all of the major models this afternoon and that was a mirage. The only real weather news is that it’s going to get warmer over the next week and the fog over the lake this morning tells you that inversions are going to become a problem, keeping the mountains warmer than we like.
One thing to note, if the media is talking about a Polar Vortex in the east or lake effect snows in Buffalo, that is a bad sign for storms in the west. Big snowfall totals are projected in the east this week. Enjoy skiing now, or don’t. See you out there, although I will be playing hide and seek tomorrow on the mountain.
