Almost Perfect

Happy Holidays

The most important thing to say today to all of you is, Happy Holidays. Merry Christmas and/or Happy Hanukkah to all. If you celebrate another holiday, or non-at-all, I still want to wish you all the very best. Celebrate your day with happiness in your heart and a smile on your face.

Today began with plenty of excitement. A mostly clear sky with just a few pink clouds ushered in the morning as the first rays of light lit the top of our favorite mountain. Nine inches of snow were reported for the previous 24 hours. Something close to that measurement stood on my deck railing. The thought of a few clean powder turns was enough to get the blood boiling. I arrived early, to get a good parking spot as well as a reasonable spot in line. The effort to arrive early, and locate a good spot in line, worked out just fine. In fact, there was really no line when we slid through the gate to jump on a chair. This was because Alpine opened a few minutes early this morning. Three Christmas Cheers for the mountain crew for getting ready early, and allowing us to load before nine.

Although it did not snow a tremendous amount overnight, it did snow enough to fill in many of the tracks made the day before, creating a soft surface in most areas. We did not have to search very far to find snow that was truly powder skiing. Snow that had not been touched the day before. Between tightly spaced trees one can often find fresh snow to track up. This always puts a smile on my face. Areas within Chicken Leg, and the Sherwood Trees did not disappoint. Open slopes such as Sunspot, God’s Knob, and Wolverine Bowl were in the sun and a little cut-up, but still very good. No complaints from Gunner’s Knob, nor Pygmy Forest. A visit to Broccoli Tree with Santa topped off the joy of skiing the trees in Gentian Gully (only open for the second day this year).

Beaver Bowl also opened for the first time today (I do not think it was open yesterday afternoon). There was some fine snow to be etched up in the trees and in the open bowl.

Most of my turns today were happy turns, but a few scrapped the hard surface beneath the new snow. This was mostly true on steeper slopes. However, it was also true on the groomed Kangaroo slope I skied after exiting Beaver Bowl. Kangaroo was pretty firm, especially after having enjoyed soft turns in Beaver Bowl.

I think the above all sounds pretty good. Great weather, excellent snow conditions, and Santa Claus spreading joy and tossing goodies to those he met while visiting the Alpine Meadows Slopes. A perfect day is rare, and today was no exception. After enjoying a few good tours of the mountain, most lifts came to a grinding halt. A power failure occurred that must have caused panic among the maintenance crew. Every open lift with the exception of Summit and Roundhouse stopped spinning. A friend of mine noted that she was stuck on Scott Chair for about an hour. All the lifts other than Summit and Roundhouse were closed down until the power was restored. The gondola, however did remain open. This allowed many, if not most, patrons to ride over to Palisades where the power remained on. Although, Roundhouse and Summit were operating on a back up generator, Roundhouse also stopped operating. We had just sat down on the chair when it stopped. Luckily for us, we were able to dismount without having to sit waiting for the lift to restart. Roundhouse did not operating for about and hour. The reason for the stoppage of Roundhouse was that an alert that went off indicating that chairs were not properly spaced. I was told it takes about 45 minutes for this situation to be rectified.

Thus, for over an hour the only lift spinning was Summit Chair. The lack of lift access sent most people over the hill to Palisades. After a while Summit Chair was left with no line and good skiing. The power outage was unfortunate, especially on a busy holiday, but these things cannot always be avoided. The skiers I spoke with all seemed to be in good moods and happy to have had such a good day of skiing even with the lift stoppage.

Enjoy your day,
Andy