The most important message that I can give you today is that no matter how good it was today, last weekend or whenever you were here last, tomorrow is going to be a completely different story with temperatures below freezing all day. Like a good blogger, I am going to ask you to read all of the way through to get more details. You know you want to do so!
Cookies
I love cookies. My favorite, of course, are Melanie’s chocolate chip cookies at Treats. My friends also know that I have an addiction to Trader Joe’s Mini Gingerbread People cookies. Often there is a box of those stashed in my locker.
But I am not a fan of cookies on the slopes. Sadly they are a fact of life in spring conditions. The snow gets too warm in the afternoon heat. The first shift of grooming rolls out the bumps and ruts of the day before it freezes. The second grooming shift comes back in the morning and uses the tiller to chop up the boilerplate and lay it down again. Add a few hundred skiers and that new corduroy quickly turns into broken cookies, death cookies if they are left too large. It’s my least favorite ski condition.
So I did four quick laps of Summit this morning, before seeking out a Sherwood test run on the apron of Roundhouse. I announced the plan to head south to my friends and headed to Sherwood, staying there for almost three hours.
Corn
The corn harvest has been on for the last two days, especially at Sherwood. I would rate the corn both on and off piste at 🌽🌽🌽🌽. It skis well, it’s not too clumpy and it’s not sticky. You’re not leaving huge ruts in your wake, so you can lap the same run over and over. You can even invite friends to join you. Robin Hood, Sherwood Left face and the Sherwood main face all skied very nicely. The cream of the corn crop was Chute Zero again, where it was buttery smooth. I give it the elusive 🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽 rating. I skied the heck out of it today, knowing that tomorrow it will almost certainly be frozen solid.
Mountain ops continues to scour and farm as much snow as they can to keep the groomed Sherwood Run alive. They have gotten very creative in this endeavor, farming in places That I have never seen farmed. There’s just not much spare snow. Still in two of the three Sherwood Runs I did this morning, I managed to tag a hidden rock.
Also new today was the grooming along the bottom edge of the Sherwood Face and the runout back toward the lift. It was sweet today to run Face laps without the tooth jarring runout.
The corn was also good at Lakeview and Scott today, just not quite as ripe as Sherwood.
Cocoa
Ski conditions are not great right now in Tahoe, or really anywhere in the Western US. Not only are their fewer storms, many of those storms have been warmer. The warm periods between storms have taken their toll on the snowpack. This creates a problem for websites and influencers that have based their existence on hyping ski conditions, thereby promoting tourism to the area and racking up viewers on their little part of the internet. When it hasn’t snowed for two weeks, what is there to hype?
A friend sent this link to a “Breaking News” post at ActiveNorCal.com hyping the best hot chocolate in California. Spoiler alert, it’s at Alpine Meadows. I have had the hot chocolate in the Meadows Cafe and it is pretty good for “machine made”. Is it worth the $6 price after 11:30 am, or $4.20 before 11:30 with your Ikon pass discount? Tomorrow that answer will likely be yes.
We continue to post content every day here, sticking mostly to ski conditions and weather. We know when people aren’t thinking about skiing, as our readership drops off. This week we have been riding at about 50% of our average for this time of the season. Fortunately, we are not in the business of making money here, it’s just a love for Alpine Meadows that keeps us going.
Bitter Cold
Relative to the last two days, we have a dry front moving through which will do nothing other than bring very cold temperatures and a northeast wind to Alpine Meadows. Here’s the weather graphic and point forecast for the weekend.
The Weather Service does advise that frostbite will be a concern for exposed skin. It’s going to be a big change from today. Fortunately, there will be some radiational warming from the sun. I heard patrollers talking about it today, and the hope is that people will be smart tomorrow. The advice would be to consider staying on groomed slopes tomorrow. There is not really anywhere on the mountain that was not affected by warm temperatures recently. Nothing is expected to thaw tomorrow. Nobody is hiding any secret stashes of powder, or even winter-like snow.
The other alert would be that the plan is for all day snow making on some areas of the mountain tomorrow. It’s almost certain that the built in automated machines will run on Dancefloor and Weasel trails, but additional areas could also be active. I am hoping for Ladies Slalom.
Some forecaster are still dreaming of something out there around midweek that could bring some snow. Here’s the Reno AFD this afternoon:
I dunno, I combed most of the models over several models runs this morning, and again this afternoon and I am seeing nothing more than a few flakes.
Be careful if you’re out on the mountain tomorrow. The groomed runs will be busy. It will not be the day to qualify for the Olympic speed skiing or freestyle teams.
Congrats To Local Athletes
The US Olympic Ski and Snowboard teams were announced yesterday, about 97 athletes this year. There’s five local athletes to cheer for:
- Bryce Bennett, Alpine Meadows – Men’s Alpine
- AJ Hurt, Carnelian Bay – Womens’s Alpine
- Abby Winterberger, Truckee – Women’s Ski Halfpipe
- Hahna Norman, Truckee – Women’s Snowboard Slopestyle
- Hanna Percy, Truckee – Women’s Snowboard Cross
There’s some young talent there. Abby is 15 years old and Hanna is 18 years old. Hanna is my neighbor. Go Hanna! There’s probably a couple I left out. Sorry. Also sad for a couple I know that tried their best to qualify…
Two additional athletes with a north lake connection are competing for other countries in the 2026 olympics.
Eileen Gu – Grew up skiing at various Tahoe area resorts is competing for China in women’s freestyle (halfpipe, big air).
Lila Lapanja – Incline Village local who was born in Tahoe and grew up through the Diamond Peak ski team is competing for Slovenia in various women’s alpine events.
I spent the early part of the morning working to make sure one of my friends was able to secure the home they are purchasing. When I finally hit the hill, I found some fairly slick areas that had been skied well on the front side. This was especially true in wolverine bowl.. however as mark noted, the sherwood side was very lovely. Nice soft corn snow. I took one run on South Face, and then it went back over the top to do the high traverse. Sun Bowl prove to be just as nice. Easy skiing spring snow. I hate to think what tomorrow is gonna be like, hopefully, not as terrifying as
One might think, with the lower temperatures.
It’s going to be rough going back to winter chill tomorrow. I’ll bring my own hot chocolate 😁
I also skied chute zero several times today and it was enjoyable 🌽🙂 even though I am dreaming of winter snow.
I skied the northern annex today. This Friday did not have weekend crowds. Groomers were all fine around noon but started getting slick and scraped off toward end of day. Maybe repairs can be done, maybe not. Most lifts were ski on. Shirley &GC had 1 to 4 min lines. On and Off piste terrain was easy to hold an edge on with my new Nordica Enforcers. My best skis ever ! Agree that below freezing temps tomorrow with some wind will keep slopes frozen. Sunday could be more spring like.
Only my 2nd day this year so I avoided double blacks like Headwall,magoos,funnel.
Next visit will be to Alpine Meadows.