No Rain Makes For A Better Saturday

The forecast for showers and thunderstorms did not materialize at Alpine Meadows today. That’s a good thing as it was another very busy day at the mountain, where honestly people were having a great time. It was a bluebird morning with warm temperatures and soft snow, the kind of weather that the other 88% of the skiing and riding public can really enjoy. We spent much of the day checking out the free demo ski and snowboard day, put together by Alpenglow Sports of Tahoe City. That meant we spent less time worrying about crowded conditions on the main slopes, nor the long lines at Summit that flowed past the end of the corral ropes much of the day.

To say that February has been a weird month is an understatement. We went from super low tide conditions, where mountain ops had to farm snow like crazy to keep Lakeview and Sherwood open. We lost Sherwood for about a week as conditions just got too spicy. Then we had the megasnow event that brought everything back to speed, expect for those few extra days it took to tame all of that new snow. Sherwood reopened and Hot Wheels Gully opened for the first time this season. Then 5+ inches of rain fell and took just about all of that new snow away. The Hot Wheels Gully season lasted all of three or four days.

Mountain ops spent the last four days doing their best to surf snowcats through the waterlogged snow, squeezing most of the water out of snow. We have now gone from about 10% of the mountain being skiable to something closer to 50% of the mountain being skiable. Huge efforts were made the last two days to farm enough snow to rebuild the top of the Lakeview zone, as well as a complete rebuild of the lower ramp.

The end result is that there was just enough terrain available today to make it possible to escape the madness. We set our test route for checking out a variety of skis. Run one was to ride up Kangaroo, located nearest the demo venue, then down Nicks Run as a reasonably smooth groomer. Then we played Frogger to cross West Runout and get to Roundhouse, where the line was much shorter. Run two took us up Roundhouse, through the small moguls on Rock Garden, to some off piste conditions along Red Ridge and Lower Red Ridge, then back on West Runout to Kangaroo to swap for a new set of skis. It was a good variety of terrain, with minimal time in lift lines.

Ranking my ski choices today:

• #1 Moment Deathwish 104 – My usual daily driver is still my number one pick for versatility. It was not available to demo today except as a telemark setup.
• #2 Rossignol Sender 100 – This seemed like an very nice daily driver that was playful, but also charged through the crud pretty well
• #3 Blizzard Rustler 10 – I was completely surprised by this ski. I expected it to just be a plain vanilla ski, but it was fun and peppy and responsive
• #4 Black Crow Camox – Squirrely and energetic in todays conditions, it was a lot of work to keep it on track.
• #5 RMU Apostle 106 Wood – My least favorite ski of the day. It was the opposite of the Camox, like skiing lumber.

A Variety Of Snow Conditions

We are still in a challenging transition of ski conditions. Typically, the expectation is that rain can help accelerate the transition to spring corn, provided that you get good overnight freezes. We have not got great overnight freezes. Overnight temperatures were 6-10 degrees warmer last night than the previous night. That meant that not much of the mountain felt at all firm this morning. It also means that corn is slower to develop.

We are still in more of a slushy state, where there still is quite a bit of free water in the snow. The end result is that while the snow is soft, it tends to form bumps that quickly become moguls more quickly. As temperatures warm during the day, things get more sticky than when we advance to good corn. It’s time to bring out the Corn-O-Meter again.

For the off piste runs, it depends very much on how much skier traffic there is to help compress the snow and eliminate free water. As an example, Sunspot is getting somewhat skied in and is actually pretty good. I put the second set of tracks in Scotty’s Beam today and it was pretty sticky having not been skied in. My hope is that with all of these people on the mountain, that more brave people would ski in some of these lines. That said, ski patrollers are probably hoping that people make good choices regarding their ability.

There’s still some wide areas of the mountain not open. Sherwood is sorely missed and the semi-official word is that the main run is burnt out. I’ve also been told that there’s some solid concerns for multiple creeks that are normally covered by the snow, that would pose a really big safety risk for people that may not make smart decisions. Junior Intern Ada sent these photos today. In the right photo, you can pick out how washed out Sherwood Face is today. We need a drone shot of the area.

The Models Giveth And The Models Take It Away

I saw some promising model runs of the GEFS for the next 16 days yesterday. It showed some good looking lows for week two of the forecast. It wasn’t a March Miracle, but it was something. But then the next 6 runs of the GEFS took that away. This is why we call that part of the forecast “Fantasyland”. You just cannot count on it. The GIF below is a “model trend GIF” that compares the amount of snowfall over the next 10 days, model run to model run. You can see that the first 6 frames look like something, then the last six frames whittle that away to almost nothing.

There’s still a chance of rain in the forecast for tomorrow and maybe a flake or two of snow Sunday night.

Go skiing, because skiing is fun. This season may end up shorter than we like.