Blue Skies, New Snow, Busy Mountain…Who Knew?

The rain we have endured for a few days has finally ended. The snow levels dropped to about 6000 feet for what seemed like the last two hours of a 72 hour drizzle fest, leaving varied amounts of new snow on the mountain over a mostly icy substrate. But people have had cabin fever, and they were ready to get out on the mountain. We expected the worst today and used our usual countermeasures thus turning a very busy day on the mountain into one that left smiles on our faces.

The official reports said there was 8 inches of new snow on the upper mountain and roughly 3 inches showing on the remote sensor at the bottom of Roundhouse. That was enough to put the wheels in motion for many, resulting in a fair sized traffic jam from both the Tahoe City and Truckee routes this morning. We noted the upper lots were close to filling by 9:30am as viewed from the Scott Chair. Yep people are more inspired in bluebird sorta-powder days more so than rainy days. Shocking news.

Most of the scheduled lifts opened early today at 8:45, which says a lot about early efforts by the Patrol and the entire mountain ops team. Mountain Manager Jeff Goldstone mentioned to me that they had continued to “bump lifts” overnight, meaning they run them every so often to prevent ice buildups that can result in delayed openings. Only Scott and Lakeview had some delays today due to some chairs having piles of snow on them that literally froze in place. During our first two laps on Scott today, there were frequent stops to de-ice those chairs as they came through the bottom terminal. Still the skiing off of Scott was worth it if you knew where to go.

We also managed to get our first real runs of the year off of Lakeview once it opened. Earlier this week we got one ride but not any skiing off of Lakeview. In total we did about 5 laps in the Lakeview zone, never once utilizing Mountain View, Outer Limits or Twilight Zone. While the new snow in this area was not as deep as on Summit, there was the benefit of no ruts, moguls or other features under the new snow, making for some smooth floaty turns that felt bottomless.

On the lower mountain, things tended to be quite a bit more scratchy. Some areas were more blown off, so it was a matter of knowing where that snow filled in. As an example the Yellow run itself was very scratchy, but Fall line and Yellow Chairline were much better. I never made it to Summit today as the line exceeded my tolerance levels. But Andy and Bobble reported that it was quite good up top, and they found success using the singles line at Summit. We saw that Idiots, Upper Beaver and points northward also opened this afternoon, bringing smiles to those that were willing to hike for turns.

It was the groomed slopes on the lower mountain that did not ski as well today. They were still skiing very firm in the afternoon hours, especially in high traffic areas like Dance Floor and Weasel Run. Although air temperatures remained cold today, the sunnier areas did get pretty well cooked. North facing snow should still be good winter snow for tomorrow.

Sherwood Should Happen This Week

My last report indicated that I’ve been watching for signs of activity showing that Sherwood might open sometime soon. I saw that today. First I spied a snowcat punching out the maintenance road that snowcats use to access the lower areas of Sherwood. That’s a good sign. Later we saw from the upper portion of Robin Hood that there was indeed a snowcat track down and around the lower terminal at Sherwood. Mountain Manager Jeff Goldstone confirmed that was him checking out the situation. He reported that it’s thinner than they would like but the hope was to farm enough snow to fill in things to where we could have Sherwood by later this week. He did not want to give a specific day just yet. I love the fact that they are getting on it.

One More Storm?

Actually there are two more storms, but one is so far north that you may not notice. The first passes to our far north on New Years Day, bringing only a 10-20% chance of snow showers Wednesday night. The second storm is currently forecast for Friday afternoon into Friday night. The latest models show it moving closer to Tahoe, which should increase the snow amounts. That’s just outside of the automated snow level forecast, but the chatter right now is for snow at about lake level again. Two days ago this storm looked like rain, so hopefully these colder solutions work out. After that we are looking at a drier period. The GIF below shows that ridge building in between days 5 and 10.

One Minute Of Fame

Unofficial Alpine is in the news at the New York Times. The author interviewed Andy and I last fall, resulting in one short little quote that appears near the end of the story, well “below the fold”. It’s easy to miss. Honestly I am glad no secrets about Alpine Meadows were spilled. Twelve hours after publishing and one person has followed the Unofficial Alpine link in the article. 😆

Here’s the link, but it’s behind the paywall. Thanks to reader Kris R for sending the gift link so I could read the whole article.