Tomorrow And Beyond

The biggest storm of the season is starting to wind down and the mountain ops teams are hard at work prepping for opening day tomorrow, and the season beyond. Truth be told, it won’t be an epic day of skiing tomorrow, but it will be amazing to be back on the slopes of our home mountain. This was a good solid storm that will likely get most of the mountain open…eventually. It was not the great white hope sold by the hype machine.

According to the official forecaster at Palisades Tahoe, Bryan Allegretto, 64 inches has fallen on the upper mountain since this storm cycle started. There is not a particular place this is measured, but I believe it’s near Belmont. It’s probably a touch higher amount at Summit. This is right in line with the 4-5 feet that I put in my last forecast for the system. There was little to no base under that new snow in many areas of the mountain. Lower on the mountain, at the base of Roundhouse, the automated sensor is showing 33 inches of snow at the moment.

These numbers are not “all time” conditions, far from it. For Alpine Meadows, terrain is rarely opened without a good three feet of base. Yes, there are some meadows at Alpine Meadows, but there is also a lot of volcanic and metamorphic rock that requires large amounts of snow for good skiing. So set realistic expectations for yourself as far as what to expect over the next week or so. That will make you happier.

What’s Going To Be Open?

The official mountain ops blog from yesterday shows the following for Alpine Meadows:

• Saturday: TLC to the mid-station, Meadow, Subway and the Big Carpet
• Sunday: Add Roundhouse (maybe Saturday PM according to latest post)

There is not a specific time frame for Summit as of yet (early next week says latest FB post). You can see in the photo above that they have been bringing in repurposed snow from the parking lot to build out the maze platform. Patience people, as avalanche danger is a credible issue, see below for details.

If you’re looking for more adventure than “shredding the Weas”, you’re going to be way more happy at the northern annex. Here’s what the ops blog said:

• Saturday: Gold Coast, Shirley, Bailey’s, Mountain Meadow, Belmont, the tram and the shiny boxes
• Sunday: Solitude and maybe Siberia

If that’s not enough, Mount Rose has the whole Rose side of the mountain open now and could have the Slide side open by the weekend. Also, they are reporting snow depths now over 100 inches, Elevation has been a boon this season, eh?

Why Not More?

I mentioned avalanche danger as a primary reason to take a more cautious approach to opening upper mountain terrain. Your rush to get to the “good stuff” should not require that mountain ops staff put themselves in excessive danger to get terrain open. There was an incident just this morning at Mammoth mountain. Here’s their statement:

At approximately 7:30AM (prior to Ski Area operations) on Friday, December 26, Mammoth Mountain Ski Patrol was performing avalanche mitigation work when an avalanche occurred on Lincoln Mountain. Two Patrollers were caught in the slide and were immediately transported to Mammoth Hospital. One patroller sustained serious injuries and is being transported out of the area for further care, the second patroller is being evaluated with possible broken bones.

Mammoth Mountain received over five feet of snow since December 23, 2025. The Ski Area will be closed for the remainder of the day.

There was another avalanche incident at Mammoth Mountain last February, which was responsible for the death of a patroller. This discussion is never complete without a mention of Bill Foster, an Alpine Meadows ski patroller killed during avalanche control on South Face on the Sherwood side on December 24, 2012. I applaud the decision of mountain managers that want to give the snow a day or two to settle before sending in mountain ops teams.

The other thing to be realistic about is that there is less demand for skiing and riding this holiday season than we have seen in quite some time. I’ve mentioned this several times as we rolled through “Dry November” – people that normally would have planned a Tahoe vacation are instead laying on a beach in Hawaii or waiting in line at Disneyland. Then there’s the people that are working a third job just to pay for their new healthcare premiums. It’s taking a toll on visitation.

One of the key pieces of evidence would be parking reservations. Since the system was implemented in 2023, it is rare to find a weekend or holiday date with a free reservation after 12:10 pm after the reservations are released at noon on a Tuesday. But here we are, three full days after reservations were released, and free parking is still available at both Alpine Meadows and Palisades every day through next Friday. That is unheard of and not a happy moment for the bean counters at Alterra, nor any of the local businesses that banks on a busy holiday season to carry them through the year.

That means there is not a lot of pressure to open every part of the mountain just yet. I don’t think that anyone is anticipating the massive lift lines we sometimes see with the holiday crush. This will likely be a season that we will rarely see all lifts in operations at Palisades Tahoe, not unless there is a huge turnaround in the amount of snow on the ground and weeks worth of powder promotion by TV weather forecasters and Instafluencers.

Yes, I know, we have paid for our passes already and they have our money. They should open the whole mountain, regardless of actual visitation, right? Yeah, private equity or public investors, it is now all about the almighty dollar and making more money this year than last year, every year on repeat. I have a pretty good feeling the “word of the year” for 2025 will be “en💩ification” and it applies to ski areas too. Ski areas should be owned by people that love to ski, not love to make money.

One Hit Wonder?

Now that the storm door opened, will it stay open? Unfortunately it’s not looking that way at this moment. Here’s the GIF of pressure anomalies for the next 16 days. Remember red is bad, blue is good.

There are no really good looking bouts of low pressure systems on the horizon and it has looked that way for the last 4 or 5 runs. This is the GFS ensemble, which did the better job of handling the current system. Some of the other models show a deeper low around the 3rd, but nothing after that. Uh oh. Get out there and enjoy what’s there is the message.

This pattern is looking very much 2013ish in that we saw just a few big storms with extended dry periods in between. I hope that’s not the case, but there is not a credible factor that give a reason for a sudden shift to a full on snowy pattern. Maybe that will change, maybe not. There’s far greater things to worry about in this world at the minute. Skiing is fun, let’s get out there and enjoy what we have.

It’s been 10 days since I have skied so shredding the Weas will bring a smile to my face. I’m also looking forward to seeing those friends I only see while skiing….and Treats!!

UA Intern Ian sent this batch of photos from the Sherwood side…looking pretty good there.