I’ll Believe It When I Ski It

That’s the oldest adage in skiing when the weather forecasts are looking a bit wonky. For a week now I have been telling you that something was possibly on the way, but way out there in Fantasyland. Today is the day where we are actually getting into that 3-5 day range where accuracy starts to really increase and become something most people might trust. It’s been a rough week of model riding and I am hoping that the last few model runs coming out today are the ones that become our truth.

First let’s talk about the skiing and riding today. In a couple of ways, it was the exact opposite of the last couple of days. Overnight temperatures dropped into the teens, amplified by gusty north winds at Summit. That allowed mountain ops to jump back into snowmaking in a big way. There were more than a dozen snow guns and fanguns blowing snow along the edge of Charity, Ultraviolet and the lower part of Werners today. The cold temperatures allowed for some great production, with some large “whales” of new snow. Again, the plan I heard was to get this area filled in and groomed to take some pressure off of Dance Floor.

With most kids back in school and adults back in the office, there was far less traffic on the mountain today, meaning one could ski the groomed terrain today if they wanted to do so without feeling like they needed rear view mirrors and a flashing beacon on top of their helmet. So that was a good thing, except after a few runs I was ready to be off of the groomed slopes again.

Up in Alpine Bowl, the groomed portion has shrunk in size. The primary reason for this is that the groomers have been kicking up rocks that are hazardous to the machines, and skiers and riders. There were still some rocks in that mix this morning, as well as World Cup wannabes, causing most people I know to skip it. Then there was the matter of the temperatures combined with the winds, creating a wind chill of -2°F. So most of my skiing today was off of Roundhouse, where there was little wind, resulting in only the windchill from skiing down the mountain.

In an effort to make some slower turns, we went in search of off piste terrain, knowing it would be likely to be character building. We saw a number of people testing out the newly blown snow in Charity and Werner’s. The small bits I sampled skied fine, but at times I noted some of the guns blew a slightly wetter mix that coated googles. I did take my first lap of the season through Rolls And Knolls this morning. It was adventure skiing at its finest, with a mixture of powder turns, ice turns, a smattering of chocolate chips and full on rock bands. Eventually we made a half dozen laps in the Yellow zone, finding softer snow and larger bumps on the right and smaller bumps and firm pack on the sunnier left side.

This is our reality for the next couple of days, so I suggest you go out and take on the adventure while the slopes are not crowded.

I am not sure where snowmaking will focus next, but if I had to make a guess, it will be on Scott Ridge and Bobby’s in an effort to get another lift into operation. While there is a snowmaking line up Alpine Bowl, you can see that the hydrants are currently buried. The smart money is that mother nature is going to be the one that has to “pretty up” conditions in Alpine Bowl.

What’s The Current Thoughts On Snowfall?

The models have been oh so flipping-floppity this week, but they seem to be settling on a series of at least three storms, starting as early as Wednesday evening. The biggest of these storms, as of today, looks to be coming in on Friday, coinciding with the first night of Tahoe Live next door, and also becoming a big factor for those doing the Friday evening commute to Tahoe. The Wednesday and Thursday portions look fairly weak. Right now the models are banking on the weekend storm to bring in the bigger snow totals.

Below is a gallery presenting total snowfall in the last run of 5 different models for total snowfall through Sunday. Each is showing 24-36 inches of snow possible through Sunday. Now some of these runs were showing nada just 36 hours ago, but the runs have been consistently increasing in numbers since yesterday. We really need some snow on the mountains. We enjoy skiing and riding it. But there’s a number of people that are counting on having been hired for jobs at ski resorts, and businesses that rely on that big Christmas holiday bump.

I got a peek at the official snowfall stats for Alpine Meadows this week, which is good because the official Snowfall Tracker page at the Palisades Tahoe site has not been updated at all this season. During the month of November 35 inches of snow fell at the base area plot. This is 104% of the 54 year average. During the same month last year, there was only 2.5 inches of snow, so you can see where we started much stronger. So far this December, we stand at zero inches of snowfall. Ouch. December of ’23 brought only another 24 inches of snow. Yeah it was bad. Hopefully this storm series comes in like the models above and sets us up a bit better.

Tomorrow should see day time highs about 10 degrees higher than today, and hopefully with cold overnights to allow for more snow making. See you out there.