Does It Go?

Does it go? That is the number one question of the day, as I am not one to ski the main groomed slopes, which are still in pretty good condition. No, after more than 90 days of skiing this season, I am looking for adventure. I am out there looking for the places we might not be able to ski much longer, and then trying out a run, wondering if it still goes. In some of these cases, runs that “went” just a day or two ago no longer go. It’s a bit frightening.

By my count this was only the 76th day of the Alpine Meadows ski season, as we started a month late. I am beginning to wonder whether we will make it to a 100 day season at our favorite mountain. I just did the math, and 24 days takes us right up to Easter Sunday. There has been no official or unofficial announcements yet, but if I had to make a guess, that is about how long the mountain will make it given the current snowpack, and a record breaking heat wave that is just getting going. There is a hope of snow out there, but that’s later in this report.

Most meteorologists are alarmed about the sorts of heat we are expecting during the forecast period. Andy even had a fun double entendre the other day that may have gone over your head “Marching Into May”. The temperatures next week are unprecedented for the month of March. They are much more typical of what we see in May during a heat wave. Here’s comments from Daniel Swain of WeatherWest.com and Rob Carlmark of ABC10 in Sacramento:

I started my day heading directly to High Traverse, as Sunspot was not groomed this morning. We did three runs there. The first was a bit early, the second was perfect and the third was a little bit past prime. In chatting with patrollers about whether or not High Traverse will be open beyond today, it’s always the same answer. It depends on whether or not it gets a good overnight freeze. But the other day, I noted that the groomer had been pulled out of the bottom of Sherwood, and the trail returning to Sherwood, nor the loading area, has been groomed the last two days. As of 10:30 this morning, it was just barely continuous. It likely won’t go tomorrow. That could be the end of the High Traverse season.

Touring around the rest of the mountain, anything below 8000 feet is getting spicy. Ridge Run on Scott is sporting some rocks, as is the main Yellow Run. There’s rocks galore on Red Ridge, Rolls And Knolls and Ladies Slalom. Above the top of Roundhouse, coverage is still quite good.

The traverse out to the top of Gunners Knob was good just a few days ago. It does not go anymore. I stepped through the duff and twigs on the first lap today. On the second lap, I side stepped up to the white strip on the top right. It goes today, but probably not tomorrow. Once the brown shows, the rate of melt really increases.

The West Face of Gunners Knob, well it’s not quite as epic as the West Face of KT-22, but it’s really been awesome the last couple of afternoons. And that is the key to having fun in this overly warm regime, looking for those places that have the right exposure at the right time. Honestly, if you time it right, the off piste skiing is better than the groomed runs.

Maybe An Unpopular Opinion

I have mentioned a lot lately about the state of the groomed slopes being a mixture of sugary snow and death cookies. What if there weren’t so much tilling being done? Given the current conditions and heavy morning traffic, would it be better? What if it just got groomed to corduroy perfection and then left to freeze? Yes, it absolutely would be more slippery to start the day. But maybe that means more people would start the day sipping coffee in the lodge, until things soften just a bit. That tilled snow gets so torn up so quickly each morning….just a thought. Meanwhile, I will still be avoiding the traffic on groomed slopes looking for the adventure lines.

There Is Actually Some Snow In The Long Range Forecast

We always call that part of the forecast, beyond Day 10, “Fantasyland” as the probability of these things coming to be is pretty low. Often I don’t take these things seriously until I start to see model agreement. That means agreement between the dozen different models used by various countries and the private sector. It also means some agreement between one run and the next few runs of the same model.

What I am seeing today is not model agreement. It’s some models showing some vastly different scenarios, therefore, don’t get your hopes too high. Here’s three model runs noting snow this afternoon, click any one to biggerize:

The GFS Ensemble and the Canadian models show only a small storm possible. Only the GFS operation run from midday shows the kind of snowfall we would need to extend this season a bit. Any forecaster with experience knows that the ensemble runs have a lot of refinement over the operational runs, so they are more reliable. All of that possible snow is way out in Fantasyland.

One thing that is of note is that we have seen a pattern since last fall of having a series of storms for about a week, followed by a month or so of very dry weather. We don’t really know the driving forces behind that, other than a very wavy jet stream (aka polar vortex). But the timing would be right for another one of those stormy periods. Rain or snow? That’s way too early to tell right now.

It is something in the models.

Happy Birthday Andy Wertheim!!

Andy Wertheim turned 39 years old today. For those not in the know, Andy was the originator of the Unofficial Alpine Meadows ski report, via email since about the year 2001, and via this site since 2008. I feel lucky to have been able to work with Andy all of these years to keep the Alpine Meadows stoke and spirit alive.

See you out there because skiing is fun.