It Was A (insert here) Season

Recapping The ’25/’26 Alpine Meadows Season

Yes, I already covered some of this the other day. It was the shortest season in Alpine Meadows history. It also was the earliest closing ever for Alpine Meadows. But I also pointed out that it was not necessarily a bad season. We saw fewer days of traffic. We had less trouble booking parking reservations. For the most part, lift wait times were shorter. Those things add up to the point where some of us can say it wasn’t so bad. So that would be the reason for the “fill in the blank” headline. I would encourage you to submit your descriptor in the comments.

We Really Only Had Three Storm Cycles

That’s it, just three real storm cycles happened this season. One of them actually happened before the mountain opened, so although it finally got the mountain open, it did not lead to an actual powder day. Our three storms:

• December 24-26
• January 4-5
• February 17-19

So yes, the powder days this season were very limited, which will lead some of you to fill in the blank above with “Terrible” or “$%#@&”.

There was another storm, the one that appeared a few days after that February blast, that brought warm rains. It took a terrible toll on the snowpack, and a worse toll on our collective psyche. When all was said and done, the snowfall totals for this season were pretty dismal.

How bad were they? In terms of snowfall by the end of the season, it was the third worst. The ’14/’15 season was the worst with only 132″ of snow the entire season. In second place is the ’76/’77 season with 185″ inches of snow. This season we saw 187″ inches of snow. There’s a couple of caveats. More than half of that snow fell in February, only to be erased by rainfall a few days later. Making matters worse were the warm temperatures this season.

On the bright side, we had an excellent corn season in late January. Then we saw more excellent corn with the late season reopening of Sherwood for High Traverse laps. That was a phenomenal week, as perfect corn and low crowds on High T are a rarity in the Ikon age.

The Mountain Ops Team Were Heroes

This was likely the most difficult season for the mountain ops team since 1977. Early in the season, it was a challenge to blow any snow to make up for a lack of storms. Then it all came at once, as a Christmas eve miracle. That meant that teams were drawn away from families to get the mountain up and running as quickly as possible.

Warm temperatures kept the snow melting, meaning that snow farming to keep the season alive was a near constant process all season. It really took some Herculean efforts just to get through this last week keeping the runouts to Summit, Roundhouse and TLC functional. Patrol was busier than ever marking new obstacles that appeared by the hour, in between helping the “three days a season skiers and riders” that couldn’t cope with the variable snow surfaces of frozen corduroy, death cookies and grooming errors attributable to horribly warm slush.

Looking back at my photos from ’14/’15, things looked significantly better as we neared the end of the season in late March. It seems I missed the last week of the season that year, as I am seeing photos I took in Puerto Vallarta. I wonder how many of the current mountain ops teams were around for the ’76/’77 season, when there wasn’t any snow making to bolster Mother Nature. I always hear stories of how they had to lay straw down the runouts so people could get back to Summit.

Hopefully We Aren’t Doing This Again Next Season

The weather pundits are calling for a transition from a La Niña pattern to an El Niño pattern for next season. Some of our big years have been El Niño years, but not all of them. We have to be careful of what we wish for, as those seasons of warmer water in the Pacific can lead to more frequent atmospheric rivers, which have the potential to bring rain rather than snow. It’s far too early to know much yet.

One thing that is certain is that we are absolutely seeing signs of accelerating climate change. Note I am not using the term “global warming”. While we have experienced record warmth this winter, Alaska has been experiencing some record cold. But overall, since the birth of Alpine Meadows, temperatures in the Western US are averaging somewhere between 2-4° higher during the winter months. That is a real concern for lower elevation ski areas in California, and yes, Alpine Meadows should be included in that pool.

We, and I do mean all of us, should take an honest look at the realities of how we are impacting our snowfall. Are the mega-passes that encourage all sorts of travel a good thing? I am in the camp that says absolutely not. More and more I feel like flying on a jet plane to tick off a few more boxes on my Ikon pass checklist is probably not the right thing to do. I will continue to ski in the Tahoe region when the snow is there, but I can’t wrap my head around long distance travel to follow the snow myself. We need more local passes and fewer mega-passes. Local passes should be cheaper and mega-passes should be mega-expensive. Yeah, I said that, and we probably just lost a dozen more readers.

Financially, This Season Was A Bust

Alterra does not release numbers publicly about skier visits or the money derived from those visits. But there are plenty of telltale signs out there. Vail Resorts in their last published numbers estimated that business was down somewhere between 15-20%, depending on which numbers you looked at, such as pass scans or dollars spent per visitor. It was easier to see that we only saw one or two weekends the entire season where parking reservations were sold out at Palisades and Alpine Meadows. We only saw the Deer Park lot used maybe two dozen days this season.

One metric that I can state as a fact is that our readership here was down about 25% this season. That is the first time that has happened since we restarted this thing in 2019. It doesn’t scare me. Our readership numbers vary widely with the weather. People want to know about the big storms and the amazing powder days. Whether they are planning a trip to Tahoe, or just living vicariously through our reports, people come here to see snow. We can see a four fold increase in readership from one week to the next if a big storm comes our way. There wasn’t much of that this season.

Fortunately, neither Andy or myself are relying on this site to put food on the table. We do it because we enjoy sharing the Alpine Meadows experience; we want to build a community of skiers and riders here; and we want to protect the history and identity of Alpine Meadows.

You Bought A Lot Of Coffees This Season

Thank you so much for everyone that participated in our “Buy Me A Coffee” site support initiative this season. For the last 7 years, the site was solely funded by my teacher’s pension. That set some limitations for what sort of things we could do here. But you all stepped up, and for the first time ever, the site was self supporting. Not only that, we had room to breathe, which allowed us to offer more.

Alterra took another step toward erasing the identity of Alpine Meadows this season. Both the Palisades Tahoe website, and the Ikon Pass app were modified to erase the appearance of two different mountains. Instead, we are supposed to look like one big happy place, divided by 8 peaks and some terrain parks. As a result, everything got way more confusing, to the point of the website and app being just about unusable.

Fortunately, we were able to step up to the plate and offer our own version of a mobile app, specific to just Alpine Meadows. This made life better for everyone. While we are not releasing actual numbers of users, it was in the thousands within the first two weeks. These things don’t happen for free though. We are paying yet another hosting fee for an additional server and paying for another domain. Your contributions allowed us to jump on that. Also thanks to the intern and their AI friends that made it all happen.

We also changed our identity from Unofficial Alpine to Unofficial Alpine Meadows. It’s another domain to register and pay for annually. We also had to hold a clearance sale on our old stickers and pay for new stickers. Again, made possible by reader contributions. Thank you.

We hope that as the new season starts later this year that people will be willing to contribute again.

We’ll Be Posting Less In The Off Season

Yes, Palisades Tahoe will be open for a bit longer. How long is a mystery. Some people have gone there and said “it’s great!” while on the same day others have said “it’s just as bad”. I do know that I am not planning on any Palisades Tahoe days this spring, and as of yesterday, neither is Andy. I do have a Rose pass and I know I will do a day or a few there. I am not planning on reports from there, but it’s not looking great.

Yes, they probably will get some snow in the next few days, but building a base at this time of year is a rarity. I don’t expect they will last all that much longer.

There could be more storms out there as we head into April. I am not planning on tracking them here, nor postulating the “what ifs” that are sure to arise. Big storms at this time of year are not impossible.

Forty four years ago to this day, a huge storm was pounding the Sierra, dropping nearly a dozen feet of snow. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the 1982 avalanche that killed seven at Alpine Meadows. The February storm was the precursor to the Castle Peak avalanche that finally broke the record set all of those years ago. Today my thoughts are there to the survivors and the families and friends of both of those incidents.

We mowed the lawn today and did our first mountain bike ride of the season today, doing our best to step away from skiing. Be safe out there.

We still have a huge announcement coming Wednesday! Stay Tuned!