If You Don’t Go!

At 6:30 pm last night, rain was pouring down in Alpine Meadows. It was depressing because we had been hoping for the air to cool down and snow to fall. At some point later in the night, flakes of snow could be seen floating down from a dark sky. When I opened my eyes this morning, I viewed two things. First was a clear sky. My second observance was snow on my deck railing. It looked like an inch of clear mush topped off with an inch of snow. The temperature outside appeared to be well below freezing. A quick look at the Palisades App assured me that it was cold. If you included the winds at the top of Alpine Meadows, the wind chill was minus 14 degrees. I guessed the clear mush-looking portion of snow on my railing was hard ice and not soft mush.

Of course, my first thought was that the mountain would be dust on crust. Rain, followed by freezing temperatures and just a little dusting of snow, did not seem inviting. I thought of bagging it and taking the day off to catch up on work. Regulars who showed up in the locker room this morning were not in a hurry to boot up. Everyone seemed to think it would not be the greatest surface to ski on first thing in the morning. However, we all put boots on and climbed the stairs into the bright sunshine. Summit and a number of other lifts were not ready, so we headed for Roundhouse.

It took about two turns skiing God’s Knob for me to realize I was wrong. Enough snow had fallen and/or been blown into low spots to make the journey underfoot a soft one. There were exposed areas of ice, but they were avoidable. It almost felt like powder, but it was stiff in many places. The variable surfaces to ski went from ice to a thin layer of crust to a pleasant, easy turning, soft powder. Early in the morning I found the groomed areas to be the least attractive as they were firm and a little rough.

Alpine Bowl was a pleasure, especially just to the skiers right of the groomed area. In addition to soft snow, may might have been 6 or 7 inches deep, a field of coral heads had spread themselves out over the surface. I smiled to myself as I skied around and between them. I imagined I was skiing on the moon (first time for me). We found a clean surface for our squiggly powder tracks in the lower area of Our Father.

D7, D8, Low Beaver, The Face, Waterfall, The Sister’s, Tower 19, and plenty of other areas on the mountain were really lovely today. I heard lots of positive comments and few, if any, complaints. Lifts were slow to start this morning because of the ice that had to be removed from chairs and towers, but most of them were running by noontime.

Scott Chair offered the Chute for experts and the normal trails for those a little less than expert. I enjoyed turning in the trees where the snow was less wind-affected and low-angle areas. The edge of Scott Meadow just below the return road was luscious. I was very lucky to ride the second chair allowed to the top of TLC when it opened. Skiing alone down through the trees toward the base of Sherwood and in the open landscape areas was a real treat. The Sherwood side included more icy spots because of winds that swept over the bare areas. Tops of mogul were somewhat exposed and icy, but there was plenty of well-covered slope to show off sets of good powder turns.

Expert Shortcut was vacant of skier tracks when I turned down its soft snow. What a surprise we were treated to today. I hope you got some of it.

Enjoy your day,

Andy