Wow, hats off to the mountain ops crew and ski patrol for getting the mountain open today and yesterday. For the second day in a row (or is the third?) Alpine Meadows had to handle two mountains worth of skiers and riders. The team at Alpine Meadows was up to the challenge, getting 100% of the terrain on the mountain open by 12:20 (with the exception of High Traverse.) They completely understood the assignment, knowing that today would likely be the busiest day of the weekend…busiest of the season?
Next door at the northern annex, the pace of operations was significantly slower. By 1:30, they managed to get the Funitel open for Mountain Run only. Otherwise it was KT-22 and points east over there. No wonder the B2B was once again gushing like a firehose pointed at Alpine Meadows. I am not sure what was going on over there. More gnarly terrain to manage? A native American holiday? Another sewage spill? A private ski day for Apex Club members? I am sure there is some reasonable explanation. I guess the big takeaway is that the upper mountain next door will be untouched tomorrow and everybody should go to the northern annex.
The pent up demand for powder and bluebird conditions conspired to make for the worst traffic we have seen in recent seasons.
Um, I wanted to know if it’s gridlock all the way from Truckee to Alpine Meadows because it sure sucks where I am. I’m on West River Street and it’s gridlock in every direction all over downtown. It’s a just a huge mess. I got a late start and um, I’m really regretting it, but I’m actually thinking, I might turn around. – A frustrated local this morning on my voicemail
Here’s the traffic conditions at 1:15 this afternoon:
Base Area Director Pat Fraser nailed it today when he told me “I hope this makes people see that the reservation system does work.” No reservations were required today, which is why I predicted that today would likely be the most busy day of the weekend. Yes, you know I always say “Friday is the new Saturday.” Yes, the reservation system can be a PITA, but I agree, it works.
Yeah so the lines were also pretty bad today. I mean really bad. Here’s how it looked at 8:45am:
Both Summit and Roundhouse had full corrals before the day started. Around the corner at Hot Weasel it was about the same. Checking lift line times, the lines at Summit, Scott and Lakeview mostly ranged from 25 to 35 minutes during the morning hours. Those are as reported in the app, not just an off the cuff estimation. When I saw the parking lot situation this morning, I purposely left my beacon in the car and decided I was not chasing powder today, as I like to ski, not wait in line. I spent the bulk of my time skiing lightly travelled cut up lines from Roundhouse, where the corral was usually full, but moved fast, generally about 4-5 minutes. I can do that.
Here’s a gallery from the day (click any to biggerize):
A Sunny Weekend…Then The Rain Falls
There’s bad news and good news. That system that looked far too warm, bringing rainfall on top of this lovely new snow, looks like it’s a foregone conclusion. The good part of that news is that it looks like that rain holds off until Monday evening. The other good parts is that the rainfall amounts have been trimmed down.
For the weekend, expect to see mostly sunny skies, but also southwest winds during the day. In sunnier area, we will likely see the new snow get sticky in the afternoons, then crusty in the mornings. North facing slopes will hold up better. With the number of skiers on the mountain today, there is really not going to be much in the way of fresh powder. The exceptions would be High Traverse, which is probably a likely bet for tomorrow. Then there’s some out of bounds areas that we have committed to not talking about here, not wanting Jerry to get in over his head.
The next storm is now in the 5 day window, where the forecast gets pretty accurate. I have two images from the latest GEFS run. The first is for total rainfall through Wednesday:
That potential for 3 inches is better than the 4-5 inches I saw in the models yesterday. The second image is for total snowfall during that same period:
So read that as pretty much all rain below 8500′ as of now. It will likely be a wintry mix on the upper mountain, so won’t affect the snowpack much other than adding water to the snowpack. The lower mountain will be hit a bit harder. I fed some details about the expected temperatures, rainfall amounts and elevations to ChatGPT, and the estimate was that we could lose as much as 30% of the base are snowpack in areas where it’s not consolidated by skiers or machines. It’s not the end of the world, but disappointing.
After the rain storm is over, we return to more of a firm pack and crusty conditions. That said, it will accelerate the corn cycle. Corn is the future at this point as the ridge wants to rebuild for days 6-16 of the forecast. It is what it is.
I will see you out there tomorrow as I do believe it will be less busy than today. Skiing is fun.
Excellent report and I wondered how busy it would be today.
Brilliant blue skies and all that new snow.
Great photos, and I haven’t seen lift lines like that in quite some time. And never when I am there…..
I’ll return next week to ski the groomers after the hordes have left.
Save me some snow!
Heard the new electric cats ran out of juice over there. 🤪
Upon checking the website and the app to see what was going to be open today or if anything open today I was wondering what was up with the other side . Possibly they are worried more about their marketing than they are about their their pass holding customers ? These photos don’t look like they happened on lower mountain! https://www.powder.com/news/best-photos-california-blizzard
I had a couple of people send me videos and photos of the B2B line going back to Palisades at 4pm…lined up back to Kangaroo & Summit, then up the hill to the Slow sign.
They were sly at the Northern Annex this morning. They got the B2B going to coincide with opening of KT-22, and they segregated riders by where they were going: KT or Alpine Meadows. The KT line was much longer, so they held the Alpine line until the KT line dissipated. Then I figured it out: they were trying to avoid the likelihood of another viral video of massive lines like the ones recorded at the Funitel earlier in the season. As for the Funitel, I, too, noticed it running this afternoon even though nothing opened on the upper mountain there today. This crass appearance of looking like you’re more open than you really are struck me as negligent when I saw the hordes risking their safety flowing off Mountain Run, which we all know is a glorified Cat track. And think of this: they have put up signs at Gold Coast encouraging people to take the Funitel down to the base for safety reasons, and today they massively increased the congestion on Mountain Run. Safety first? I don’t think so.
Bizarre how Alpine has whole mountain open but Pali has nothing on upper mountain today. Make it make sense!
Today was amazing at AM wow, just wow, lift lines be damned. Probably the deepest powder I seen anywhere. OB at telluride once in Bear Creek drainage compares & was lighter.
I arrived late but found out Sherwood just opened. I headed that way (after a 40 min line at TLC. ) Found out bingo -there were no lift lines on Sherwood so I stayed there for 5 runs!
Only black I did was Expert shortcut. Scott chute did did look primo. Tried to register the day on ikon app but it failed.
The reason the reservation system keeps the traffic down is because people don’t want to deal with it or pay the money. I’ll ski somewhere else in the backcountry or go sledding and avoid the Ikook fest. I don’t know how you guys can stand the crowds on the $ouled out holidays and weekends.
Some friends I like to ski with can only ski weekends or holidays, so there is the primary reason I go on weekends. The reservations are a pain to do each week but not impossible. I have never paid.