Sherwood, How I ❤️ Thee

Forget that the calendar shows January 31st, because today was a classic spring day at Alpine Meadows. The sun was out, temperatures reached near 50°, and Sherwood offered near perfect corn skiing. The only thing missing was a good funk band on the Sun Deck.

I was a little concerned to start the day, as once again, a dirty ridge in the Pacific is allowing a front to pass through the Northwest. Today we just saw some hazy skies. Tomorrow we could see a bit more wind. I was feeling the chill on those first few Summit laps this morning, having chosen an old school Alpine Meadows hoodie for an outer layer today. There was perfect corduroy smoothness on that first lap.

But a few successive laps exposed more and more cookies. With the off piste terrain locked up in ice after a warm afternoon yesterday, the unguided missiles were flying down the groomed runs and the line was building quickly at Summit. A friend sent me this message last weekend, but it was also totally applicable today.

People just kept pouring in from the breezeway and off the shiny boxes. The urge to find cookie-free snow and get off piste was overwhelming, sending me to Sherwood right before 10am. There I stayed for 17 laps. Yes, the Sherwood groomer is still holding on, and word is, there is still one more stash of snow they plan to farm to keep it going. But the Sherwood Run also gets very busy, and that was not in my plan.

Robin Hood, Maid Robin Tucks, Sherwood Face, Sherwood Right Face and Chute Zero were all firing today with perfect corn snow. Choose your line carefully and you can avoid the largest moguls. Rocks are starting to get exposed at a much more rapid rate and today I noticed manzanita bands that weren’t there just two days ago. Debbie also said that South Face was really good. High Traverse was probably good too. But there was so much to do at Sherwood that required zero hiking.

I took a break from skiing and had lunch at the Ice Bar today for the first time this season. Captain Dan and crew have had the BBQ out there on past few weekends. I grabbed a hot dog that was reasonably priced and an Ice Bar Transfusion slushie that was more expensive but very tasty. There was plenty of seating, some chill music and that old Alpine Meadows vibe today. Not returning to the hectic scene on the other side of the mountain made me happy.

There were some times that I considered moving on toward Lakeview. Then I looked at the UA Mobile app and saw the wait times were 9-11 minutes, while Sherwood was practically ski on. Usually it’s Sherwood that is swamped on a spring day, but the current state of the groomed run seems to push people to the better coverage at Lakeview. That coverage was improved by a huge snow farming effort last week. So instead of leaving Sherwood, I spun a few more laps in Chute Zero.

What a great day of Sherwood skiing. I fear that it may not hold on much longer. Sources confirmed that if Sherwood closes due to a lack of snow, it’s possible that we might not get it back. It’s much more difficult to build a base in the later part of the season with the angle of the sun higher in the sky and longer days. Also, once staffing is reduced, getting people back also may not happen. My plan is to get as much Sherwood in now while I still can. Lakeview and Scott are in a similar perilous position.

About one third of the weather models are showing a change to a negative PNA index, or a stormier pattern about 10 days out. Over the last ten days, only the Euro model was showing any possibility of storms in the long range. Today I see that the last 8 runs of the GFS ensemble include the potential for more than a foot of snow about 10 days out. This does bear watching. It’s something.

An Update On The Free Lunch Program

News has traveled far and wide regarding the Ikon Pass Free Mountain Credits promotion. The promotion asks some Ikon Pass holders to sign up, then receive $20 in mountain credits for each day they ski, up to a maximum of $60. Alterra never intended this to be a widespread promotion for everyone, as initially only email invitations were sent out to some pass holders in certain areas. Since that time, the sign up link has been widely shared on the internet and one UA reader sent me a screenshot of a page at Deer Valley that did invite people to sign up. Yes, that page is still active.

Exactly how Alterra plans to resolve this SNAFU is unknown at this time, but a reliable source told me this morning that there’s going to be a a lot of disappointed people that do not get the credits. My guess is that they will weed this out by identifying people that used the coded links widely shared on the internet. That said, I got an email today congratulating me on my first day.

Who knows how this will end, but I am guessing that someone is going to have a black mark on their permanent record for not foreseeing the power of the internet.

See you out there tomorrow. Based on today’s report, you probably know where to find me.