Crazy Talk

It was another bluebird-ish powder day that fell on the Saturday of a holiday weekend. As I turned on to Highway 89 this morning, a full 75 minutes earlier than usual, there was a battle of the bands going on in my head. Ozzy Osbourne came back for an encore performance of “Crazy Train”, but Britney Spears was right there trying to push Ozzy off the stage with her rendition of “Crazy”. Then some nut job in a lifted truck passed 7 cars at once to get around the van in front of me sporting tire chains on the bare pavement. It seemed like it would be that crazy kind of day again.

This comes on the heels of yesterday, when we got to wait around at Alpine Meadows for 5 hours for the Roundhouse lift to spin. Some of you probably just thought that the authors of this blog have gone just a bit crazy, waiting so long for a few powder turns. But the real crazy thing is that there were at least 300 to 400 other people doing the same. People have a passion for powder skiing. Thanks to the linemen from Liberty Utilities that reconnected the electrons, and the mountain ops team that never gave up hope.

Getting to Alpine Meadows 75 minutes earlier than normal gave me plenty of time to wax my skis, enjoy a side of bacon from Treats, and get a friend to do some edge work on my skis. We also got a chance to make a game plan for the day, difficult with the Palisades Tahoe app showing most of the preferred lifts on “anticipated weather impact.” We watched as most people lined up for Summit, trusting it would open soon. We took the alternative route and headed to Scott.

The line at Scott was at a standstill as patrollers finished their routes. Occasionally that line would get bigger, then shrink again as people abandoned ship and headed elsewhere. At 9:45, liftees finally got the go ahead to start loading the lift. Scott Chute looked surprisingly void of any slide activity, and was soon filled by the whoops and cheers as the first wave of skiers and boarders made some perfect and not so perfect turns in powder that skied about a foot deep.

We were in the right place at the right time as the sign flipped to open for my favorite part of the mountain. I lost track of my ski buddy on the way down through untouched powder, seeing nobody until dropping into the final pitch above Subway. We were both of the opinion that we could just go home at that minute and be perfectly happy. Instead we hot lapped it back to do it again.

Photo above and below by UA photo intern Reese

The difference today that betterized everything was that by the time Scott opened, every lift on the mountain was open. Just about every square foot of the mountain was skiing very well, which really spread people out. Mid-morning, High Traverse also opened and that is a massive amount of terrain than can absorb people like a sponge. A “hot lap” of Hi T can take an average visitor an hour, keeping more people off of the Summit chair and the major trails. The busiest lifts of the day seemed to be Sherwood and Lakeview as new visitors applied the old logic of “the backside is always better”. Maybe it was. I heard High Traverse was very good.

After our adventures off of Scott, we spent the rest off the day enjoying the very short or even non-existing lines off of Summit and Roundhouse. As time went on in the midday and afternoon, I found myself shedding layers of clothing. Even an old lightweight Alpine Meadows hoodie felt like too much. The snow was also feeling the heat, especially in the sunny locations. Things got a bit heavy.

Tomorrow will be a different day. A lot of what skied well today will not ski well tomorrow due to rapidly growing moguls and heated snow. Hopefully there will be a full contingent of cats out there tonight taming some of that stuff. In areas where grooming doesn’t happen, expect that moguls will grow much more rapidly that after the last few storms. That under laying ice has kept mogul growth to a minimum over the last month.

Snow Showers Then Spring Conditions

We have two weak impulses still on the way, the first rolling through tomorrow. As of now, there’s a 50% chance of some snow for tomorrow with accumulations of an inch or so possible. So dress accordingly. The second of those impulses now looks to arrive on Wednesday and as of now, it will also be not much of anything. After that we have a pretty solid round of spring like weather ahead.

You say “That’s not possible” because it seems like winter just got going. But from the meteorological perspective, spring is during the months of March, April and May. It’s less than two weeks until March. The transition to spring corn could be slower this time. One of the benefits of midseason rain is “instacorn”. Without rain to speed that process, we need to go through the longer process of a mank cycle and consolidation before we get good corn. That can easily get interrupted by another round of snow.

Looking back at the last storm, the last forecasts called for 40-65 inches mid mountain. The final totals came just short of 40 inches. We have seen it time and time again this season where the cold air arrives a bit later than expected. We got a denser wetter snow that did not fluff up as much. C’est la vie.

Yes, tomorrow will be another early day, but I am already excited for day 87 of the Alpine Meadows ski season. See you out there.