Welcome To The Country Club

Even with some major events, the weekend at Alpine Meadows looked like they were midweek days. Today, Monday, it was like skiing at a private country club. That’s odd because the skiing and riding is fantastic. I’ll recap today and take a look at yet another failed attempt at finding the golden egg on Sunday.

I was worried, as today was the warmest day of the week, and that does not always lead to great ski conditions. But because there was a decent freeze overnight, it turned out just fine. There also was some worry as the Palisades Tahoe app and website indicated this morning that Sherwood was closed today, and people were not ready for that eventuality. Fortunately, it was just another glitch in the matrix and we have been accustomed to that lately. As we took that first ride up Summit, Scott was not spinning and High Traverse was listed as open – eliminating the fear of a day without Sherwood.

We are into the last week of the season at Alpine Meadows, so it’s reasonable to expect that we might see a bit less of everything. I’ll mention here that grooming was very limited today, with only the major routes being buffed out. As an example, off of Summit it was only Alpine Bowl and Wolverine. Off of Roundhouse it was only Rock Garden to Dance Floor and Werners. But fortunately I didn’t come to Alpine Meadows to ski groomed slopes today, or most days. While it was sad that Sunspot was not groomed, Wolverine Bowl offered the same buttery corn turns on steroids.

I just did three quick laps on Summit, with the last being a visit to the presumed location of yesterday’s golden egg, looking for some answers. More on that later. Otherwise it was off to TLC to put in as many Sherwood laps as possible before they switched us to Scott. Rallying the groomer to scope things out, I noted a significant amount of snow farming was done overnight to make sure that the crossing of the summer road remained covered. It’s going to be a battle the next few days.

We managed 9 laps on Sherwood, mostly in Chute Zero, being fast and efficient. The rest were on Sherwood Right Face, where the exit points are getting spicy. Everything about those laps was perfect. There were no ruts or chunder left from yesterday, and Sherwood closed at the perfect time today, just as it was feeling too soft. I absolutely love these sort of mornings. Five 🌽 day!

The transition to opening Scott was pretty quick today and we managed to snag third chair, only because we were polite and not pushing staff down as they removed the closed sign. Some folks were not so nice. We did the obligatory perfect corduroy laps on the groomers and did a bonus lap on Standard Run from the top, also very skiable. Our day ended with a few laps in Gentian Gully and the Promised Land. I might have kept going except for that sticky slog back to TLC via Meadow. Word to the wise, Meadow and Big Carpet are now done for the season too.

It’s unbelievable that more people don’t enjoy this spring skiing at a private resort sort of experience. We’ve got six more days to make the best of it, not counting those that get to take part in some employee days at Alpine Meadows early next week.

I’ll Be Paying For My Season Pass Again

It was another year of not finding the golden egg yesterday during the Easter Golden Egg Hunt. Honestly, it’s the least hard I have ever tried for one of these hunts, as I just wanted to go skiing. Every once in awhile I would get sucked back into the hunt, but milking the most I could out of Sherwood and Scott was at the top of my list yesterday. Nobody is ever going to say that I do not get my money’s worth out of my season pass. As of today, I have skied 151 days on this year’s pass, which is every day of the Alpine Meadows season. That’s almost like free.

This year’s egg hunt was bound to be different. Because Easter is so late this year, we have limited lift operations. It was unlikely that the golden egg would be hidden at Lakeview, Sherwood, Scott or Kangaroo.

Update: Pretty much everything that people thought below turned out to be wrong, according to a comment from “In The Know”:

The fire weather camera at the f tree is called the alpine meadows ctc. All of the clues had to do with the poma lift that never got installed from the top of Sherwood to high yellow.

Yes, all clues do seem to match up with that explanation, so it’s likely the correct explanation. I make note of the proposed F Tree poma in my Alpine Meadows lift history post, but not in such great detail. 99.9999% of visitors to Alpine Meadows have no idea about this location. How someone found it from the clues provided … I dunno.

I am leaving the original notes below there because that is what people were thinking…so far off.

Clue #1: X almost marked the spot: As it turns out, this clue likely was intended to tell people that the location of the egg was near one of the holes from Saturday’s snow golf tourney. The holes were marked with circles with an X inside. The common misinterpretations were “near Expert Shortcut”, leading myself and several others to search near Arts Knob; others selected an X on the printed trail maps where Charity and Boomerang intersected and searched at that location.

Clue #2: 550 feet?: My best guess here is that the scorecard given out on Saturday, or a sign at Hole 4 may have indicated that the hole was 550 feet. For those of us that skipped golf and looked at ski area stats, the Yellow chairlift has a vertical rise of close to 550 feet. I searched it top to bottom, as did many others.

Clue #3: CTC: Nobody I know has been able to crack the code on the meaning of “CTC”. One of our missions today was to investigate in the area near where the egg was located for anything indicating CTC. One thought was CTEC, the lift company. But the nearby ABC lift was a Riblet then a YAN, but never a CTEC. I would welcome an explanation for this clue because I am clueless here.

Clue #4: Still Laying There Waiting: The best guess here is that the egg was in the area of the ABC counterweight near Loop Road, and the “waiting” was supposed to be a clue to “weight”. That is not how I read it. “Still laying” got me thinking of “laying eggs” and “Chicken Leg” is in the area of the Yellow lift (see clue #2). I was not the only person that followed this thought, as there were quite a few tracks there and the skiing there was abysmal.

Clue #5: Four Holes In…: This was the final clue given before the golden egg was found. I felt like it did refer to the fourth golf hole. I had an idea of the general location and know several people that searched the area near where it was found. When the winner’s photo was posted to Instagram, I had a good feeling for the general location.

Update: The shadows in this photo show a different location that would be more of a north facing slope…. I am now mystified.

So there ya go…that’s a wrap on another failed golden egg hunt. If you figured out clue #3, I would love to know about it!

There’s still a cooldown toward the weekend, but slightly less talk about snow now. See you out there tomorrow…