World Cup Racers: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Rest Of Us:⭐️

It was another less than ideal day at Alpine Meadows. For the second day in a row, that lingering low pressure system from last week brought us a stream of low clouds and a strong east wind. Those two factors together meant that the groomed slopes were in fine form for world cup racers and wannabes, being fast and very firm. For those of us that just wanted to get out and have some fun and explore the mountain, conditions were not great. Honestly, things may have started to warm up after I left around 12:45, but by that time those chilly east winds had already extracted a few thousand kilocalories of heat energy from my body.

Summit started the day on wind hold, forcing most people to select Roundhouse as the next best choice. The groomed slopes were very firm and fast, encouraging the world cup wannabes to put the pedal to the metal. Unfortunately, it’s still spring break somewhere. That puts a decent number of kids on the mountain that are likely terrified by the icy conditions. My answer would usually be to avoid the groomed slopes in favor of places like Chicken Leg, Rolls and Knolls or the ungroomed Yellow. I already lost a couple of teeth last week, and skiing off piste was only going to accelerate losing more of them.

The minute I felt some softness on the Sherwood analogs, we loaded up and headed to Sherwood. There we found minimal grooming and a lot of people that were doing their best to scrape off every flake of loose snow from the icy substrate. The first lap was frightening with what seemed like 100 people following me down the Sherwood Run. As we started the second lap, I entered Sherwood Run and saw what looked like 250 people going down the groomer. We made a quick exit and headed to Lakeview.

This limited grooming thing on these spring days is a problem. It’s fine when the off piste is attractive to a lot of your clientele, giving a good reason to leave the corduroy. But when only 2% of skiers are off piste, the groomed slopes get downright dangerous. Robin Hood groomed all of the way down and around the bottom of Sherood Face would have split that traffic in half. Later on, when Summit did open, only Alpine Bowl was groomed, not Sunspot or Terry’s Return. The ungroomed options were chunder and breakable crust. It was disappointing today with the off piste not so great and few other options..

Things were not all that much better midday at either Lakeview or Scott. I just practiced my pivot slips, except it looked more like pivot – slip – slip – slip – slip – slip -pivot – slip – slip – slip – slip – slip – pivot – slip – slip – slip – slip – slip -pivot – slip – slip – slip – slip – slip. I am sure that those conditions may have improved late in the day once the winds abated, resulting in fewer clouds blocking the sun.

In a nutshell, the conditions for corn development have not been ideal over the last couple of days, due to the lack of really good melt and freeze cycles. Typically that means we didn’t get enough freeze, but in this case we have not had enough melt with cloud cover and cold temperatures. You would think that means there’s still a lot of good winter snow out there. There is not. It was just warm enough to make a lot of north facing terrain crispy. You will find short pitches of good winter snow in the zone from High Yellow to Hidden Knolls.

The next two days should be somewhat better because temperatures are expected to be 10 degrees warmer and there will be good overnight freezes to promote corn development. Hopefully more terrain gets groomed overnight. With more skier traffic and warmer temperatures, together we can iron out that problem of chunder and ruts.

That reminds me to say something about High Traverse and the Upper Bowls. I have heard complaints on the mountain and online this week about Ski Patrol not opening those locations after the last storm cycle. I am guessing that most of that complaining is coming from people that have not spent a lot of time here. Had patrol opened that terrain on Wednesday, the first sunny day after the cycle, all of that terrain would have been thrashed as well. It would be a gigantic minefield of bad stuff, and there’s just never enough ski traffic out in those places to smooth it out. By letting that terrain consolidate and corn up, it can stay good for weeks. I respect and applaud that decision.

It’s Winding Down

There’s still nobody that has come forward with any other closing date for Alpine Meadows other than April 27th. The northern annex finally started mentioning that they would be open until Memoria Day, conditions permitting. Experience has shown that none of that applies to Alpine Meadows unless they directly put it in writing. That has not happened yet.

• The Tiegel terrain park was not rebuilt after the last storm and there seems to be no hurry to rebuild it. This has become the norm by April.
• I am pretty sure this is the last weekend for teams at Alpine Meadows.
• Word is that this is the last weekend for the Lakeview zone, reportedly to accommodate more tree cutting again.
• There is no music scheduled for Alpine Meadows beyond the 27th. That the band Pipe Down is scheduled on a Sunday rather than Saturday tells you something…

Where Art Though Springtime?

Spring is not here to stay just yet. We do have a weekend warm up, before a low pressure system scoots by Sunday night That only brings a 30% chance of snow so far, but it means Monday is likely chilly. We get a decent stretch of warmth midweek before the next low moves in for the following weekend. At this minute it does not look like a big snow producer, but it does look like it could revitalize the World Cup Training conditions.

See you out there tomorrow….