All Sorts Of Excitement

It was another fine ski day at Alpine Meadows. Yes, it was much like yesterday, and the day before that and so on. You would think there was not much to talk about, but somehow the words do come together. Yesterday, Andy mentioned that he likes to sing a little tune to himself while skiing down the mountain. I find myself doing that once in awhile, but more often I find myself thinking about what the topics of today’s post should be. Often these ideas start as something a random said on the chairlift, or the way someone was skiing or riding down the mountain.

We were perplexed this morning by the “Closed” sign at the Summit lift when we walked up to the Sun Deck this morning. Nobody had bothered to look at any terrain and lift updates as nothing has changed for about a week. As it turned out the swing shift was just a bit late in finishing up in Alpine Bowl this morning. The reason isn’t important, but it did allow for something different in today’s photo of the bowl. We appreciate the efforts of the grooming team resetting the mountain every night, making the best of what little snow is available to cover rocks and other obstacles. I know I was willing to be patient.

After starting our morning with a few laps of Roundhouse groomed runs, when Summit did open we got right down to enjoying the lightly moguled terrain that I guess you might call “Upper Terry’s Return”. Eventually we worked our way to the north, finding nice creamy chocolate chip ice cream over near Solar Flare, skiers left of Sunspot. The chocolate chips would be the rocks that are growing more frequent. I also took a lap over in Lower Idiot’s after Andy’s glowing review yesterday. The run itself was fun but the traverse across the Wolverine Bowl presented those big bands of rocks that were itching to remove P-Tex. My newish skis are quickly looking well used.

At 10:44, an unusual alert sounded on my phone, advising me to drop and take cover. An earthquake of a 7.0 magnitude had been detected off of the coast of Southern Humboldt County. Being that I was standing in the Summit Corral I felt safe enough. No shaking was felt at Alpine Meadows, although people did feel it in Plumas County to our north. A short time later, while riding the Summit Chair, I got a Tsunami Advisory on my phone. Again, I felt safe at an 8,000 foot elevation. Somehow, my phone knows I am a science nerd and appreciate these warnings. Humboldt County is my “old turf” from my college years and I was glad to hear of only minimal reports of damage in the area.

Although the skiing is not amazingly awesome at the minute, I cannot help but think how good we have it, being only December 5th. So that caused me to look back at this date over the past years:

• 2023: We were still skiing on just Hotter Wheels and Weasel Run on manmade snow
• 2022: It was the first day that the Summit lift opened with mostly natural snow
• 2021: Alpine Meadows did not open until Decemberber 16th
• 2020: We were still skiing just Roundhouse and TLC, while figuring out the whole COVID thing
• 2019: Unofficial Alpine just started reporting again on 12/6 after a 2.5 year hiatus…Roundhouse was the top of the mountain

So yes, while it has been a bit dry lately, that set of mid-November storms set us up for a pretty good early season at Alpine Meadows. Tomorrow, we drop into what more people consider the “real” ski season, as all kids team programs begin this weekend. It’s also the first weekend with required reservations for parking at Alpine Meadows and Palisades. I have some reservations. By that I mean that I am a little bit worried about what the mountain looks like with a lot of teams and their families headed for the hill with about 50% of the terrain open. Without a doubt, the groomed terrain will likely be overrun and very busy. It will be a weekend of finding sneaker lines that keep you away from any crowds if you don’t mind moguls or adventure skiing. Yes, I do have parking reservations too. It’s interesting to note that there are still parking reservations available at both mountains this weekend. So members of the general public, without team commitments, look to be waiting to see more snow on their nightly TV weather segment.

Confidence Is Building In A Changing Weather Pattern

In the short run, a wave will pass to our north over the next three days. That will bring rain and snow to Washington and Oregon, but not likely to our area. We will see winds increasing, especially notable after this calm period. Expect some significant wind chill and colder overnight lows. We should see more snowmaking happening into next week. The best guess is that efforts will continue around Charity and Werners to get them to a state where they can be groomed and spread traffic. I’m not sure that Meadow is quite where instructors would like it to be, especially noting the “Kids Under 12 Ski Free” promotion from December 7 to 13th.

Farther out in the future, there are 2 or three storms in the models. There is agreement that it should happen but exactly what it looks like is not exactly clear yet. As of today the time frame looks like December 13-16, which could be a challenge for Tahoe Live. The GFS is the outlier, showing only a foot of accumulation. The most recent run of the Euro shows 24-30 inches of snow during that time. These systems are 9-10 days out, which is now into the “Realm of Possibility” instead of Fantasyland. I’ll feel more comfortable if they are still in the models at 5 days out.

At this time, this is not a major pattern change. It looks more like a temporary blip and then a return to ridging. Unfortunately, most of the sites where weather would be discussed were discussing the earthquakes and resultant tsunami alerts today.

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The League To Save Lake Tahoe and Sierra Watch filed suit in Placer County Superior yesterday to overturn the recent approval of the Palisades Tahoe Village Expansion project. This was expected and we applaud their efforts. The courts have been much better at protecting Tahoe than the elected officials.