Over Performing

I would like to start this post by giving a big high five to everyone on the mountain operations team at Alpine Meadows. With the holiday crowds gone and a little break in the weather, they got right down to business in expanding the availability of terrain and lifts. Yesterday we saw Sherwood open for the first time this season. Then today we got Lakeview. Having expanded terrain to play and more lifts open with shorter lines is what I love about Alpine Meadows. Thank you again for all of the work that goes into opening new lifts and new terrain.

I especially want to give a blue ribbon to the cat operator that built the lower ramp at Sherwood. Enough snow was put there to put the swing gates at knee level, so the RFID readers at hip level work perfectly every time. This is the way it’s done at Mammoth and Mount Rose as well. Thank you.

Also over performing is the current storm. Back on Monday when I wrote my last report, this storm looked like nothing. The expectation was for a whole lot of cold air with very little new snow. It had the look of a “dust on crust event”. Instead there was a velvety coating of new snow on the mountain this morning. It varied from an inch or two at the base up to three or more inches up top, depending on wind distribution. Better yet, the point forecast is calling for another 4 to 8 inches overnight with very cold temperatures tomorrow.

It’s an odd setup for this storm. We have a strong low coming down from the north bringing very cold air. The mostly over land path is relatively dry. Then there’s the secondary low to the south bringing in warmer moisture from the south and feeding it into that cold air. That’s the likely reason for an over performing storm. The little refresh is a nice touch. Be aware that with all day super cold temps, the mountain ops team is supposed to be blowing snow all day tomorrow to bolster the snowpack where they can do so.

After than it looks high and dry until somewhere way out in Fantasyland around day 14. This is not unusual, the term “Juneuary” has been around as long as I can remember. We saw an epic corn cycle last January too.

Also over performing is the unnamed but extremely underpaid intern that is helping with making Alpine Meadows great again. We’ve been working on bringing notifications to the lift and trail status pages. We are not quite there yet. Having amazing interns willing to work for nothing but a love for Alpine Meadows is awesome.

Under Performing

Well for starters, I am under performing in the department of skiing. This injured rib thing is putting a damper on my ability to get out there and really have fun. We did do an “around the world” tour of every open lift today in honor of having so much available. Kangaroo and ABC were not on the schedule today, but we covered everything else. All lifts were basically “ski on” today. I am not ready for much in the way of off piste skiing yet.

The conditions were variable today. Alpine Bowl probably offered the best experience with a few inches of snow over soft bumps. But the visibility was only slightly better than “inside of a ping pong ball.” Velvety new snow over groomers was awesome. Then there were the areas that got sun baked yesterday, leaving ruts and chunder just barely covered by new snow. This would describe much of Sherwood. I found my run of the day on Outer Limits, not busy, newly groomed and a lot of windblown snow along the left edge.

There were small pockets of good snow to be found in newly opened areas. Intern Reese sent this nice photo.

An Under Performing Season

I think it’s important that we are honest with ourselves about where we are at for the season. Yes we have had some fun snow and people have been snow starved and super pumped to “get the goods” and then make the world believe that it’s an epic winter after two storms. Recently there have been claims that we are at 112% of normal right now at Palisades Tahoe. This is counter to the numbers from the professional water people, that say that number is closer to 64% of average for this time of year in the Northern Sierra.

If you take a hard look around the mountain, you will get what I mean. There’s still thin coverage in a lot of places. There’s still a creek running down most of Subway and around various places at Sherwood and Lakeview. Skiing off piste, you still see stumps, logs and way more small trees that we should be seeing at this time of the year. It’s minimal, but it is what it is, and I will enjoy what is there. Be safe out there.

An Under Performing Reservation System

We have travelled back to 2023. That was the year that Palisades Tahoe implemented reserved parking for both Palisades and Alpine Meadows. For the entire ’23-’24 season, making parking reservations was a hassle and a half. The system choked due to the huge numbers of people making reservations all at once. It was not good at all.

Then during the ’24-25 season, everything was magically fixed. Word on the street was this was due to team parents being allowed to make reservations early, reducing demands later. Whatever it was it worked. I managed to get reservations every time I tried, on the first try with minimal delays. We started this season with similar efficiency, apparently due to a lack of interest in skiing over the holidays due to the late start of winter.

Fast forward to the last two Tuesdays, after the Instafluencers posted thousand of “look at me” powder Sierra cement shots, the demand for parking is back to normal. Thus the reservation system is once again grinding to a crawl. It was super slow yesterday at noon and I couldn’t get a Saturday reservation at all with the delays. Again at seven pm the system was like 90w motor oil. I did manage to get a Saturday reservation. Too much time wasted.

That’s all I have for today.