The Number Of Ski Areas Open In The Sierra Doubles Tomorrow

So winter is weakly arriving in Tahoe this week, with a little bit of a sputter. Further south, Mammoth Mountain was able to parlay its higher elevation and a strong southerly storm track to open this morning. But thanks to a little storm moving in and some serious snowmaking effort, Mount Rose will be opening tomorrow, November 21st. I’ve been decidedly grumpy the last few days but this puts a big smile on my face. Will Alpine Meadows make it for next Wednesday? That remains to be seen.

Mammoth’s Opening Day

Mammoth is officially reporting 36 inches of snow fall this season. Higher up on the mountain it looks like there is more than that. I saw a photo near Chair 3 yesterday that looked more like a 4 foot snow depth. That is 3 to 4 times as much snow as we have seen in Tahoe this fall. That has allowed them to have a very solid offering for Day 1. Here’s what was scheduled for today:

• Chair 1 Broadway
• Chair 2 Stump Alley
• Chair 3 Face/Saddle
• Chair 11 Discovery
• Chair 23 Wipe Out and Drop Outs
• Gondola to the top

Here’s what it looks like by the numbers:

That’s quite an offering. That said, opening day at Mammoth can be a total 💩 show. They throw a party and that brings out a big crowds. That can lead to massive lift lines which are not always well behaved. Some people say that the Southern California crowd behaves differently than your normal Tahoe skiers and riders. So I have never chosen to ski Mammoth on opening day. Today was likely somewhat different, especially having Stump Alley open, which would allow you to completely skip the lodge zone. Frequent contributor here, Randy, was itching to head there this morning and I hope he chimes in with some comments.

Hat’s off to Mammoth Mountain for pulling off a huge opening day, even if it arrived 6 days later than they had hoped.

Mount Rose Opens Almost Top To Bottom Tomorrow

Mount Rose is doing better than the other Tahoe ski areas. Just to start, the base area at Mount Rose is about the same elevation as the middle of Alpine Bowl. Alpine Meadows typically gets more snow than Rose, being right at the Sierra crest, but the last three storms have had a lot of wraparound showers from the east that have favored Mount Rose. Mount Rose is reporting 12-19″ of snowfall this season, with more falling today. They are opening 13 days later than what they had hoped.

For opening day tomorrow, they will be running their Lakeview lift, which almost stretches to the top of the mountain. That said, skiers and riders will be essentially limited to one run, divided into four parts:

• Upper Northwest: Let’s not kid ourselves. You can milk maybe five turns out on this part of the run.
• Kit Carson Traverse: This is essentially a cat track leading over to Kit Carson Bowl. Typically it’s 4-6 tracks wide in terms of snow cats. You’ll be navigating that with people that decided that it’s a good day to teach their friends to ski, old guys practicing for the Olympics they never went to, young guys turning everything into a park feature, and regular people like me just trying to stay alive.
• Kit Carson Bowl: There’s more room to move in the bowl, so it’s a little bit of a breather. Generally patrol likes to keep people on just the groomed area early season, but over time people will push that boundary to the right. I like to let other people expose the obstacles before I sample anything off piste.
• Pondersosa: Ponderosa is a long flat runout back to the lift. It’s not all that exciting, but it is a chance to polish up your turns pre-season.

Which Should You Choose?

Obviously, Mammoth is the correct choice here if you have an Ikon Pass, as Mammoth Mountain is on the Ikon Pass. When the weather is good, it’s possible to day trip Mammoth Mountain from Tahoe. It’s about 3.5 hours one way, depending on your exact starting point. There’s whole legions of people that make that same trek to Tahoe for a day trip. For people wanting to go to Mammoth from points west, Tioga Pass and Sonora Pass have closed for the season, making that a very long drive. Mammoth has much more snow and far more terrain open and that probably still makes the trip worthwhile.

If you’re needing to to buy day tickets to go to Mount Rose, it may not be worth it. Adult day tickets through Sunday are $119 each, for one lift. Ouch. That said, you could go with a morning only ticket for $69 or an afternoon only ticket for $59. It’s just one long run after all. The important caveat is that those prices are for prepurchased tickets bought online. The price for walking up at the ticket window is roughly double that number. Yeah, plan ahead.

I planned ahead even more, having bought the Mount Rose Off Peak pass earlier in the fall. That was a gamble. At that time, there were potentially 18 days to ski Mount Rose before Alpine Meadows. Now it could be as little as 5 days, which means I have to make those days longer to even come close to “break even”. But every ski pass you buy is a gamble, and for me, I love early seasons at Mount Rose. I have a lot of friends that call Mount Rose their home mountain, including some that work there. Unfortunately, once Northstar gets going and adds a lot of traffic on 267, it’s not a pleasant commute to Mount Rose. My accountant won’t necessarily agree, but I’ll do my best to convince myself it was worth it.

The View At Alpine Meadows

It’s not looking ideal. There was some snow making happening last night, but it was not all that productive. The base sensor at the bottom of Roundhouse is currently showing 3 inches of new snowfall today, with temperatures just below freezing. Wet bulb temperatures are still running at 27°ish degrees, which is far from ideal for snow making. Here’s Weasel at 1:50pm via the Chalet webcam:

That is better than it has looked yet, but it is a long way from a sustainable ski base. The forecasted overnight lows are decent through Tuesday night as of today, but unless the humidity goes away, snowmaking will remain a challenge. Right now the models show a weak system passing to the north on Monday, then a warming trend until the next storm shows the following weekend. It’s not an ideal setup.

Coverage does look significantly better over at Palisades on the upper mountain. Maybe this is one of those weird years where Gold Coast is the first lift to open.

It’s time to go locate some ski equipment and even consider waxing some skis. One more sleep…