The Ninth Inning Begins

We turned the corner today. There’s just 21 more days this season to enjoy the slopes at Alpine Meadows and you can already feel the difference. Today was the last day for most teams. Today was the last day for the Lakeview chair. The Kangaroo chair is also looking done. I would be surprised to see either Yellow or ABC spin again this season, barring an east wind event closing Summit. Parents were cleaning out lockers of kids ski gear, looking forward to not splitting weekends between ski teams and baseball games. I’m doing my best to get my mindset in place for an end to the Alpine Meadows season. You’ve got this Mark.

It wasn’t an ideal ski day, but the good news was that there was something to make many people happy. There were wide grins this morning on that first lap up Summit this morning, seeing that both D8 and Sunspot finally got the chunder and bumps smoothed out into clean corduroy. With the bright sun and warm morning temperatures, Sunspot offered creamy slushy turns while D8 offered perfectly manicured winter snow just 100 yards away. It was that kind of day, where the aspect of a slope was everything. At times it was comical how close you could find the two conditions. My son reported riding in Waterfall this afternoon that the left wall was spring snow while the right wall was winter chalk.

It was my intention today to focus my efforts at Sherwood and Lakeview, hoping that the corn cycle had advanced significantly overnight. I had visions of perfect Sherwood groomers followed by a finally consolidated Sherwood Face. I also had high hopes for some victory laps on Beam Me Up Scotty. None of these things happened. Robin Hood was still ungroomed and chunky. Sherwood Face and Scotty’s were in a condition that was not inspirational. We are paying the price for all of that powder fun last week!

Outer Limits, Bobby’s, Scott Ridge and the Sherwood groomer are all starting to corn up and ski pretty well, but very busy with few people venturing off piste. This will be less of a problem in the coming days, well except that Outer Limits will be off limits due to the start of logging operations at Lakeview. We haven’t used the Corn-O-Meter for awhile and it is now time:

There is still a lot of free water in the snow. That causes the groomed “pre-corn” to become clumpy after it’s been skied rather than leaving a smooth surface for following skiers and riders. That free water in the snow also causes stickiness and that can be a real drag. Even with my favorite One Ball Spring Slush wax applied this morning, there was still stickiness starting around noon.

Off piste, the snow is frozen chunder to start the day, which can be smoothed out as temperatures warm, only for new chunder to left behind by midday. Then that chunder refreezes overnight and we start the process over. When the corn has further ripened, we don’t see that chunder development as the rounded corn crystals do not stick together.. We are not there yet.

I had every intention to get back out after lunch today to give Sherwood Face and Scotty’s another go. Instead I had some quality time with the world’s cutest baby on the Sun Deck, allowing my son and daughter in law to make some laps together. It was delightful.

Tomorrow Is Looking Potentially Wet And That Might Be Okay

The confidence built a bit today in a weak system passing to our north over the next 36 hours. It looked like it might be nothing but here is the short range NAM model for total QPF (Quantitative precipitation Forecast) for that period:

The models are suggesting 0.5 inches of rain. None of that is likely to be snow, with snow levels running 8-9k feet. Those are not “Melt all of your snow, panic!” levels. But suffice it to say that skiing and riding may be a little unpleasant tomorrow as in wet, and Tuesday morning, potentially a bit icy. It is what it is. I would actually lobby for greater amounts of rain, as that would be helpful in consolidation of the current snowpack which will accelerate the rate of corn ripening. It will be a bummer for those that are still chasing that last bit of winter snowpack.

In the longer run, there’s still a hint of something out about 12 days, pretty much into fantasyland. Once we have a hard date for our mountain closure, I’m pretty much okay if it does not snow anymore until that time.

Rain or not, I have to make some laps tomorrow at Alpine Meadows. Having done 146 days in a row already, it’s not time to just start missing days. See you out there….