The Limited Power Of Raindrops

We had what felt like a decent dose of rain drops yesterday at Alpine Meadows, with various sources putting that number at somewhere around 1/3 of an inch of precipitation. While it did have an impact on the quality of the snowpack, those raindrops did not fall in large enough numbers to have the impact we wanted on the large numbers of now manky snowflakes that fell last week. Compounding the issue was that corn development counts on a good refreeze and that really did not happen overnight.

The quality of the skiing may have actually been better yesterday in the rain, except for the pesky details about getting drenched and having limited visibility. The conditions of the groomed surfaces this morning was pretty good until it wasn’t. There is still a lot of free water within that upper layer of snowpack, causing clumpy snow to accumulate and sticky conditions by midday. Only the very south facing groomers were more corn-like today and unfortunately that is limited to Sunspot, Bobby’s, Scott Ridge, Sherwood Run and shorter pitches on Lower Rock Garden and Upper Weasel One.

I grabbed a couple of great Sunspot laps right away, but then lost my mojo for Summit due to the kook factor – people skiing too fast and too close on the West Runout in too big of a hurry to get back into the Summit line. I would love to see Ski Patrol get way more aggressive about pulling these chuckleheads over for an uncomfortable conversation.

Looking at the Palisades Tahoe app, it insisted for the third day in a row that all of the usually groomed terrain at Sherwood was groomed, so we headed there before it got too soft. And for the third, or maybe fiftieth, day in a row the app was wrong. The main Sherwood Run was no better than West Runout, wannabe world cup dudes and families with small children on spring break are not a good mix. I did try some off piste terrain and found that both the ungroomed Robin Hood and Sherwood Face were not corny yet, and quite punchy without a good overnight freeze. I chose to not continue skiing these zones looking back at the deep ruts I left behind.

We did a few more Summit laps and a Scott lap before calling it a day. There was a lot of stickiness to the snow that again was a real drag.

Looking at the week ahead, we get one more chance for a good freeze tonight. Then we have three warmer days in a row with relatively warm nights that will push us to a more slushy snow than we would like. Potentially there is a cool down over the weekend. No significant rain or snow is in the forecast until way out in Fantasyland.

Today was the last day of having to make parking reservations this season for next weekend. Looking right now, there’s still free reservations available at 2 pm. That rarely happens during the season. The jury is still out on whether or not the reservations are really helping anything with traffic, or is it that we are finishing our second lackluster season in a row that has created less demand. One thing I will say positively is that the process has been easier this season. Allowing team parents to get a head start and some beefing up of bandwidth means the reservation process has been much more smooth this season. I also appreciate that it remained basically unchanged from the previous season, so no new learning was required.

See you out there tomorrow….