Winter has returned to Tahoe, but the timing is unfortunate. Both Palisades Tahoe and Kirkwood are reporting 3.5 foot storm totals out of this last system. The honest truth is that much of our favorite mountain is looking about as good as it ever did over the last ski season. Someone else was doing a tour of the mountain this morning via the webcams, I just followed along and made screen shots. What if this had happened a month ago?
The images are stunning. The lighting was amazing as the sun crested at 7:45am. I am sitting here in the fog of Martis Valley, unaware that it actually may be a nice day out there. Here’s the gallery, and as usual, you can click on any image to scroll through larger images.
It almost makes me really want to get out there for some pow turns. Then again, I know the realities of April storms. Someone was out there checking it out this morning, and the tracks don’t look all that smooth. I am not throwing shade here, as my tracks would have looked worse, and would have included a half dozen sitzmarks.
The temperatures were not all that cold over the last 24 hours, and spring snow tends to turn to cement the minute it is exposed to that big fireball in the sky. Imagine how heavy that snow would be once the lifts spun 90 minutes later.
The other thing to consider is that most of this new snow has little or no solid base below, unless you count rocks or stumps as a base. Between the high angle of the sun and the warmth of the earth’s surface below, this snow will condense a lot in the coming few days. We received about 18 inches at our house out of this system and it’s already been condensed to about 8 inches in 24 hours, and that’s before the sun has come out.
One question I have seen posted a dozen times this week is whether or not resorts will reopen or expand terrain due to what has been described as “Atomic April” or “Amazing April”. Big snowfalls in April are not all that rare. Approximately 25% of the time since 1970, April snowfall exceeded 50″. If you lower the bar to 36″, more than half of seasons since 1970 have exceeded that number.
Looking at the numbers, there are no seasons where March was a shut out followed a relatively snowy April. The closest I see was ’21/’22, where March showed 14″ and April showed 83″. It’s not like mountain management had any reliable data to know that we would see decent snowfall this month.
So back to the question, would the mountain reopen if it continued to snow? The answer is pretty much absolutely not. At Alpine Meadows, the mountain is already in summer mode.
- Employees have been laid off or switched to summer functions. People have moved on to other jobs, often nowhere near Tahoe.
- The mountain has been cleared for the summer. That means that sleds, first aid gear, rope lines and signs have all been stashed away.
- The task of tree removal is well underway. Trail crews that do the tree removal rely on having snow to drag trees to a point where they can be hauled off by trucks. There is absolutely no shortage of dead trees that need removal each year.
Have I been out there getting freshies? Nope. The powder panic that has been created with these storms is just a deterrent for me, and that is nothing new for me. The number of Ikon passes sold in the NorCal market assures that there are always far too many powder junkies willing to deal with lines, lines and more lines. Right at the minute, the wait at the Funitel shows as 18 minutes. That alone will kill my interest. I have seen the same sort of wait times at Gold Coast, Shirley, and Siberia over the weekend. For the same reasons, I skipped Mount Rose this weekend. I would have considered that option today had they not switched to a weekends only schedule this week.
Up until this snowfall, the bike riding has been great, both on and off pavement. Hanging out with the grandson is rewarding. In the upcoming weeks we have a camping trip and some beach time in our plans. Going skiing is pretty far from my mind right now, even though the photos are beautiful.
The GIF below is a “model trends” GIF, showing total snowfall expected over the next 10 days. You can seen that things looked very progressive a couple of days ago, but the GFS ensembles are now pulling back on expectations.
Winter is still out there for the people that still want to go get it, at least for another few days. Rose has announced April 19th as its last day. Palisades Tahoe is still showing daily lift ticket sales through Memorial Day and maybe they will make that date with some productive April storms. Should we get back to spring corn season, I would not discount the possibility of getting out for a midweek day or two.
Curious for any of those readers who went up on Saturday, Sunday or today — how was it? After having taken the kids on a great spring day earlier in the week, we decided not to subject them to zero visibility, sleet-in-face, and long lines, so packed up the ski lease on Saturday and drove home…I would welcome any first hand reports on if that was a good decision or not.
Reports were very mixed. Influencers said “Epic best day ever”. Regular people reported zero visibility, long lines and extremely variable snow. Several people reported things like “two turns out of ten” were good.
Mark – very true, the more you ski the less these conditions seem desirable
Yeah….total April Fools, but good news for the moisture and those that are still skiing elsewhere. It sure has put a “time out” on my summer hobby which had started extra early this year. I had been maintaining trails in the forest for the USFS and TDR. A lot of trees came down this last winter as I had already cut 13 trees that had fallen across trails up in the 06 area in the last several weeks. That fun stuff is all on hold now. Patience Grasshopper!
Just removed 18” from my deck in Alpine, to add to the 18” yesterday…turning to cement very rapidly…go carefully if you are skiing!
We’re definitely in agreement on what is under the latest snow – we skied at Kirkwood on Sunday a couple of weeks ago. It was absolutely crap and crowded in addition to rocks and dirt everywhere. Skied four runs and called it quits for the season.
Not worth getting hit or hitting a stump or rocks – normally you can get away from people by getting off piste, that’s a fools paradise counting on the new snow to be enough to keep you from hitting something. I’ve ended two seasons hitting rock and stumps, there wasn’t a chance of me going back out thinking conditions were great.
Buddies came by to hit Kwood. I nixed it and told them to send pics. 2 hrs later I got a pic of some nice turns with about 500 of their closes “friends”. A “few” dark spots at the end of their turns.
Glad I chose a second cup at Cuppa Tahoe.
Given the contract with the forest service, when is the Alpine Meadows scheduled for private/resort access and at what point is it open to the public to access freely?
I think that’s a pretty murky question. Although the lifts aren’t spinning, there’s still equipment and tree cutting going on. My guess is that USFS will always side with management rather that people wanting to skin. All of my experience skiing and skiing Alpine has Ben in June and July.
I skied Palisades yesterday (Sunday) and had a great time. Yes it was cold and stormy, but lift lines were far shorter than I expected (mostly lapped Shirley and Solitude). Sometimes the corrals were full, but, more often than not, they were less than that. The snow was heavy and bumped up quickly, but it was still a lot of fun!
First couple runs around Shirley Lake and Solitude today (Monday) were fabulous light un-tracked winter snow.
However, that light snow quickly changed becoming heavy and longish lift lines didn’t help the fun factor.
Break at gold coast 2:30 Monday . Got here parking at 11. No line on FUNITEL SOLITUDE AND SIBO REALLY CROWDED AT FIRST. This iPhone 17e sucks as caps were on and would not turn off. Now suddenly off for no reason. no line on Shirley and in past hour other lines dropped way down. I guess powder hounds left. Traffic on 80 sucked and moved at 30 mph all way from Yuba gap to the mouse hole. due to hundreds, maybe even 1000’s of trucks out. Sunny from 11 to 1:30pm now overcast Snow skied like 18 inch of deep light to med powder. Now completely chopped up and getting sun baked. Getting toward Sierra Cement. Maybe some corn snow in 2 or 3 days if Wednesday is not ruined by RAIN.
Money hold is in effect. Too many employees have been laid off. Only major lifts(5) running are GC, Shirley, Sibo and solitude. Why didn’t they move some employees here after AM closed. They could easily run Emigrant and granite chief. Maybe Headwall. Mt run could be open and maybe KT. I don’t see how they can call themselves the “Spring Skiing Capital” if they do little or no snow farming on Headwall or Sibo. \rant off. . I’ll probably do this Saturday then quit Tahoe only because my new favorite band ,broken compass bluegrass,is playing free. 3 or 4 days at mammoth are on radar in a few weeks.
Thanks for your posts. I always appreciate the conditions reports you provide and your commentary!
We all have different tolerance for lines and other inconveniences, but I think the outlook in this post was way too negative. Sunday and Monday were the best two days of my season at either Palisades or Alpine.
Lines were reasonable (under 10 minutes at every lift) all day except for the initial wait to get onto the funi (~15 mins) both days. The snow quality yesterday was fantastic and Palisades patrol did a good job of opening everything they could. Great fresh tracks at open and then really good refills at Solitude in the afternoon. Today I had some of my best runs I’ve ever had at the resort off of Siberia (albeit, quickly skied out) and then excellent, untracked runs hiking Emigrant peak and mainline pocket. The snow got gloppy by 1 pm but the first half of the day was blue bird and legitimately deep.
Yeah, my line tolerance is about two minutes, but that is my problem. Generally speaking it just means I go to a less popular lift. I’m not gonna go to Pali on a pow day to ski Big Blue. Glad you had a good day Doug.
Thank you, hopefully this will turn to corn quickly and you can enjoy some more turns this year!
This season has been disappointing in a lot of ways but the vibe in line today was the most friendly I’ve every felt at Palisades. Everyone seemed to be grateful to have even a few good pow runs unexpectedly after such a poor season.
On the April 2nd bluebird powder day couple weeks ago,gold coast and Sibo weren’t running for awhile so Big Blue singles line stretched All the way up to the slow sign on Mountain Run
Saturday felt like 6” of fresh cheese
I arrived at the Northern annex around noon Monday to a largely full parking lot, but got a decent spot immediately, when someone left. No line at the Funi and no real lift lines to speak of anywhere. By that point, the snow was chopped up and sun impacted, but it was a beautiful day. I wasn’t sad I left the house, but that’s about as far as I’ll go.
Those photos of newly snowy Alpine Meadows are beautiful, but those empty chairs going nowhere with snow piled on them make for a dispiriting sight.
Showing some can-do spirit, Arizona Snowbowl reopened for tomorrow and Wednesday, with ticket prices between $12 and $18 showing online. The NWS forecasts 6-10” of snow mid-mountain overnight with a low of 19 degrees and a high of 33, so nothing like the legitimate dump the Sierras received, but apparently enough for some NAU students and other locals to go dodge some rocks and bushes for a day or two on the cheap.
Nice photos… I understand your points of view and agree… good perspective report as always ..
Actual Palisades got shredded yesterday by the raddest skiers as always at that other mountain A. lready M. ore C. rowded owns. Ski patrol are total badasses who don’t hardly get the respect for the amazing risky work they do. They bombed it and opened all the rad lines. Did you cool Alpine kids send any GNARly runs on Palisades yesterday? Chimney, Schmidiots, Extra Chute, were off the hook awesome to see getting shredded by the best skiers as always. I skied Main Chute, won’t even believe how old I am now, 60 is the new 30. Was awesome. Ski ya later much.
I am pretty sure people are calling me a fool. I will live. 🍻
Sunday was an amazing day despite lines and low visibility. The snow kept getting better as the day went on. People were exuberant and friendly despite lines. Even the hike out of Solitude was cheerful- lots of camaraderie and exhilaration for a surprise powder day.
As a follow up, I just got an email from Snowbowl, which as I’ve mentioned sits at the approximate latitude of San Luis Obispo, saying “It’s Not Over Yet” and promising skiing through the weekend, with lift tickets offered for as low as $5. Yes, five U.S. dollars for a day of skiing/riding, whatever form that may take on whatever is accessible from the one remaining open lift. Gotta give them credit for trying…. and making it affordable.