It was spooky today at Alpine Meadows. It was like that feeling you get when you’re exploring a ghost town or an abandoned house on the edge of town. At a time where one would expect the parking lots to be full and the lift lines extending beyond the corrals, you actually found empty slopes, empty chairs and an empty lodge.
We arrived after 9 this morning and noted that we saw nary a skier on Dance Floor, which was a good indicator of how the day would transpire. Summit was down for a mechanical issue for about 90 minutes this morning and we expected a line to form at Roundhouse. It never did. Even with Summit down this morning, there was never a line at any lift.
We started to ponder the reasons for the lack of visitors today. Surely some people may have gone home after Christmas, but not nearly all of them? Teams were not meeting today, and that clearly left slopes more open. We also noticed that Alpine added both Yellow Chair and Alpine Bowl Chair to the operating schedule today. That seemed like an odd move, given that the parking lot was likely about 20% full today, and that’s a generous estimate.
So we carried on with our day and enjoyed some groomers this morning, which held up very nicely today with the light traffic. We also made a lot of nice laps on Yellow Trail, enjoying some December corn and slush bumps. If you haven’t been out to Alpine lately, some larger park features were added at Tiegel. There’s still not enough snow to build jumps, but about 6 new features have been added. Spreading the park traffic to two parks has really reduced congestion at Sandy’s Corner. Well done park staff.
North facing slopes like Lower Palisades, Deer Camp and Lower High Yellow continue to offer chalky winter snow with varying degrees of moguling. These areas may begin to see more traffic if ABC continues to run this week.
There’s still no snow in the forecast until about 10-12 days out, which is better than the never ending “2 weeks away”. Given the current conditions, I took my own advice today and headed to the Truckee Sports Exchange. I picked up a cheap, used pair of stiff, skinny skis that should carve nicely given the current conditions. At about 80mm underfoot, it’s the skinniest ski I have owned since about 1994. It should be a small investment in happiness until it snows.
Sometime during lunch, we had an epiphany. It occurred to us that today marked the first day of the holiday blackout period at SquAlpine. Last year we had epic powder days and empty slopes during the blackout holiday week. This year we have limited terrain and some marginal off piste conditions. It’s hard to imagine Alpine Meadows attracting too many people with a $102 holiday ticket this week. You would think someone in marketing would have learned that lesson last year. If only Alpine Meadows could offer its own ticket for a more family friendly rate, instead of needing to match Squaw Valley pricing. #freealpine!
As I understand the vacancy rates are huge atm around the lake, there’s a lot of sense in offering a local’s pass with a good-priced bonus for buddies, friends, family and grandkids. But it all hinges on finding ways to appease gold pass holders at a risky time of year who feel they deserve to ski whatever is open. They paid the big bucks. Would separating the mtns work? Probably not. Would giving gold pass holders a vip lane to jump the line work. Maybe.
PS: With RFID and season pass discounts on lodging and shared occupancy/booking data, there’s no reason wh resorts can’t roll out well though out ideas in advance. Indeed Andy will know Intrawest had manuals on rolling things out depending on a lot of economic data (rather than weather data: gee they were un-observant imo). Anyway, if they have smart execs and smart IT people, they can cure these things before they become a problem. Real skiers will still br bored but this is really all about economic survival.
Are you surprised? I realize that you are able to search out some snow to have fun. But I think you are the exception. For most intermediates doing laps on Dance Floor gets boring pretty quick. I have a gold pass and a house in Alpine (I am very fortunate) and see absolutely no reason to come up except perhaps to see my friends. Paying $104 for a ticket or $89 at the friends/family rate for the marginal conditions is crazy.
I was thinking about the combined lift ticket and wonder if it really works against everyone. When conditions are better at one area than the other then EVERYONE goes to that mountain. Kind of like locusts. Once the snow there has been worked then it is on to the other area. As long as the snow is limited and it is easy to hop over to the area next door we will have this problem. For the Epic Pass are there two areas where one can easily ski at both in one day? N*, Heavenly and Kirkwood are all separated by a significant drive. Even in Colorado the areas are not right next to each other.
I guess as long as we have little or no snow we have big problems with no workable solutions.
I agree! But the problem is…if Alpine is locked in to charging Squaw rates, then holiday periods will continue to be empty. As much as I personally enjoy that, I know that the holiday season is all too important in the season’s bottom line.
40% of total gross revenue is earned in pass sales from April to late November. Smart execs would be monitoring all sorts of things right around the lake, know this was coming, and then getting the word out on ideas to stop No Shows. I’d be doing a damn sight more than a vid of a 8 year old “Chief Fun Officer” or oushing $89 buddy passes. Andy’s people was given pics of ideas because this season was and will be a shocker. I think these resorts need to plan ahead and Assume that every Xmas has to be turned into lots of things to stop no shows. Give them value (an elusive concept) and they’ll open wallets and come …and spend in the other areas like food, bev, and lodging.
how many lights are ‘on’ in the village.
How full are the bars, restaurants and car parks. (you said AM capark was only 20% at best full).
Are lodge managers complaining about no-shows and cancellations?
Is it the economy or lack of snow, or lack of a blitzreig of activities
Is the place full but guests are playing tourist due to lack of snow?
Was SV pushing passholders to entice passholders to have friends buy passes out of desperation or just to sell more passes?
Are Epicpasses more popular, or have MVP passes made holidaymakers move to snowier climates.
Is it more fun to stay at Heavenly or Reno with shopping and casinos and shows?
Or is it just ‘lack of value’ or the ‘there’s no snow’ media that frighten families to not throw good money after bad.
You’d have to crunch a lot of stats and figures to sort out what, if anything, is not putting money in the cash registers?
Are managers neglecting/mismanaging the customer base so people stay away and muter “Never doing Xmas again!”
Until a holistic analysis – that adds the Soul Column to the accounts – nothing will change.
Changing topics it is my impression that both N* and Heavenly have significantly more open terrain due to their snowmaking capabilities. Where do they get their water from? Obviously not Tahoe. It seems even with the supposed investment in snowmaking capabilities at both Squaw and Alpine they can’t compl;eye with N* and Heavenly.
Nstar (part owned by Jamacan doctors) has its own water board that amalgamated with other boards and might pipe water to SV (part owned by Jamaicans) and maybe to AM (part owned by Jamacans and possible buyers of some land near a river).
Farq that’s a big water pipe man. I wanna know where they get all the weed.
Translation: JMA owns a part of Northstar, JMA also owns a share of SquAlpine, JMA reportedly is the purchaser of River Ranch. This common thread has resulted in some water boards jointing forces to approve Martis Valley water going to Squaw and Alpine. Did I get that right? 😉
I’m writing a spy-politics novel. . Hypothetically in some parts of the world, – not the US of course where all the ploticians are above board – you’d infiltrate committees, ride over dissenters with tactics or rewards as innocuous as “I was part of the kerzillion dollar master plan”. Others get ‘benefits’. , Get them to approve anything you recommend, and then ask the county or water board to approve the recommendation. The approvers are ‘simply’ acting on advice of an ‘expert committee: no fingerprints. Of course the outcome is a predecided outcome – like ‘which of these acres, owned b y KSL and Poulsen and others which aren’t for sale would you chose for a museum – there’s only one outcome, and it ‘happens’ to be the outcome they wanted. Some will know the plan and its objectives, and some will be rewarded in time. Others are just blind or don’t want to see, eg the self-aggrandising type who want to feel important because they’re on a committee. There’s lots of committees for water, road, bikes, pipes and buses and maybe trains. Then litigation with greenies is settled with a few concessions to make them feel good, but the greenies don’t know what’s next. The amalgamated boards may pipe that water under roads – with govt grants. There might be committees working on bus plans across State lines to get NV and CA counties to under write the bus. There’s plans for the groundwork for the Winter Olympics – my book is based in Russian Satelittes by the way, not tahoe, Meanwhile planning boards awards themselves trophies as they watch $290 bus seats , $94,000 bus stops, $5m 64 acre bus stops, $200k renovations at a station, a water taxi from casinos. Then Putin flies in …but that’s because my book is set somewhere else. It is a good story, no? Of course it never happens in real life, it’s just a novel.
Hey Mark
I hear (may be wrong) that the sewer and snowmakiong pipes blew a hole near High Camp, and that’s impacted on snowmaking too. Reading Andy’s letter from January 2012 sounded a bit jerry rigged to me but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a problem.
If it’s true that, again, the sewerage leaks from pipes, does the untreated poop and water gurgle its way into that lovely aquifer? Eeew, I better stick to PBRs.
According to people qouted in Moonshine Ink, there wasn’t much poo and it only leaked on the ground.
Does stuff on the ground leak into the aquifer with snowmelt and rain, or not?
Please ask the lady on the poo board how do the poo people measure poo and water that’s running down the hill?
Where in the photo are the placer health people – I don’t see a ski doo, do you?
You really are a scooper of all the poop on Squaw! 🙂
http://moonshineink.com/sections/spot-news/sewage-line-break-causes-temporary-closure-squaw%E2%80%99s-upper-mountain
I am not skiing…was up Wed-Thur-Friday before the holiday week started. Skied till I got bored each day, but, even by Friday, the limited slopes were scary crowded. I have a condo as Squaw Valley Lodge (tho a locker at and 20 yr commitment to Alpine). SVLodge is booked pretty solid through New Years Week. I even ran into a couple who had come from Australia for their annual ski trip. I suggested he head straight to Reno and book a flight to Whistler, but he was upbeat. Anyway, the low traffic might be due to the fact that Saturday is turn-over day, and according to the front desk folks at SVL, there was a huge turnover. Probably folks who in other circumstances might have organized to ski the day, but decided it wasn’t worth it.
Knowing the conditions, I let them rent my place through the weekend, and they said they had plenty of folks on the reservation waiting list.
Hey Hors,
Stone the crows, mate, is that you?.
Hey wouldja mind re-stocking your cellar coz its a bit empty 🙂
Here’s Kirkwood’s rate: call it $78/hr for 6 straight non stop private lesson for one. http://oak.ctx.ly/r/kx9r
Which way to Kirkwood? Ferry to Southshore? No! Teach me at Alpine Meadows, where it was (could be again), the family friendly, affordable resort that has the best instructors for a most enjoyable experience. My friends tell me the ski instructors are really cute too!
Everyone looks like George Clooney next to “Frank Zappa”. 🙂
Come on out and take a few laps with Olympic Gold Medalist, Jonny Moseley. Intermediate and expert skiers can join Jonny at the bottom of Summit Express at 10am for a fun-filled 2hr mountain tour. If you still have some runs left in you, take the Squaw/Alpine Express with Jonny and finish the afternoon at Squaw from 2-4pm.
Ski & Ride with Jonny Moseley Dates: December 28-30, 2013
Time: 10am-12pm, meet at the bottom of Summit Express.
At least SV are doing something for the tourists. It’s not a whole program of activities but it is a start.
Nstar are throwing a party for owners and prospective buyers. Gaffney’s crew are re-screeing McConkey, SV has Smores at Chase Int and ski runs with their elite athletes. What else is being put on? Are SV rolling out local bands, or a bit of a rail jam, a teenagers disco/dj party or a Heavenly Angel style happy hours? Roll out them bbqs and the girls from Sierra Pale Ale, Nature Valley bars, cookies, clowns …oh wait, you already have clowns running the show.
Andy said: “The Squaw Valley system is working better than it ever has, and is producing more water than ever, thanks to some upgrades which were implemented in 2009. At that time, Squaw Valley replaced the mile-long primary snowmaking pipeline between the snowmaking holding-ponds at the Resort at Squaw Creek and the resort base. This pipeline replacement eliminated several significant leaks, vastly increasing the amount of water that could be made available to the snowmaking system. In addition, Squaw Valley connected several existing irrigation wells, and improved others, to enhance the resort’s ability to refill the ponds during hours when snowmaking is not occurring. About half of all the snow that Squaw Valley has made during 2011-12 was produced from the improved wells and as a direct result of system upgrades. Whenever snow is not being made, the ponds are being replenished at a rate of hundreds of gallons per minute. Pumping operations to refill the ponds occur 12 or more hours each day.
Two primary constraints we face in snowmaking are the same ones every snowmaking system in the world faces: ambient temperatures and humidity.
Our approach has been to make snow, in quality and quantity at every opportunity that temperatures allow, in the best most logical places possible and not reach for “number of trails” but quality of surface. As I write this, a well known skier affirmed that in North Lake Tahoe, while we don’t have the largest trail count, the Squaw Valley snow surface is in fact superior in quality and resiliency given the ongoing, very warm days and nights.”
Let’s hope the temps fall so the snowmakers do their magic.
Just to clarify one thing about snowmaking. We’ve (all resorts in the basin, not just SquawPine) have been hammered by these nightly inversions. I keep hearing people complain that ‘they’ aren’t making snow where we need it, but they don’t realize that although it’s 19 degrees a the base of the mtns, it’s above freezing on the upper mountain.
“Saying the word inversion is actually short for saying “temperature inversion,” which would already make the subject a little clearer. Usually as height in the atmosphere increases, the temperature decreases. This is why it is 10 – 15 degrees cooler in our mountains than in the valley. A temperature inversion means that the opposite is occurring: The valley floor is colder than the air above it and the temperature continues to increase with height.”
These daily inversions are killing any opportunity to make snow up high.
Put my Bust back in the Cable Car!
So just to be clear, when it’s crowded you bitch about it, and then when it’s not crowded you bitch about that too. As a passholder I’m fine with the higher ticket prices at the window.
Not a bitch at all. I want to see the lifts and slopes crowded with vacationers that spend money. It’s an important part of keeping mountains alive.
We get those $400-$500 bronzes and silvers at those prices because the resort wants guaranteed money in the bank from regulars fom April to early December. If day passes fall, people don’t buy early bird season passes, don’t pre book holidays early, and we’re all screwed. (PS The new town should ban paid parking on the new carpark because paid parking is like gold).
All a resort can do is lift-lodging packages so the gold pass holders aren’t pissed off, but if the public realise there are last minute specials then they hold out to the last minute. The bank manager then harrasses the resort from Apil to December as everyone sweats on the snow. No snow, no people.
Mark,
According to http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/9496139-113/valley-olympic-incorporate-town, we could have a 5-person town council in a year, under the very experienced Robert Van Nort as town manager.
2014 will be a big year.
The new town has to pay out the ‘ex wife’. But is Placer ‘the ex’? I’d say the town is like the abused kid who ‘divorces’ his abusive neglectful free-spending parents. Can we get a Grand Jury to look into Placer County’s books.
Sierra Sun..pg 24..”Squaws Sigourney gains on Bowman”….dang! I thought she was Alpines Athlete. Take it all, take it all…….
Squaw possesses all its souls, Valleygirl. KSL even took credit for the Olympics and McConkey. PS The movie is screening again on De 28th (I think) at OV Lodge. At least someone is trying to do something for the bored holiday makers.
Yep McConkey is screening at 5.30 Dec 28th at OV Lodge, tickets are $15. Kids 16 and under are free. I think its great to see some people put on something for the tourists. Next question: what are other people doing to grow a community that works together?
Hey, saw this on tv. Where are the snowmaking upgrades they talk about?
http://news.kron4.com/news/lake-tahoe-ski-resorts-pad-slopes-with-own-snow/
Dear UA,
I read somewhere the Australians saved their ski resorts – a few times in 10 years – from wild fires by using bigger snowguns, recycled rain water and recycle greywater. Should Squaw’s plans build their ideas into saving water as well as saving lift pylons. How long would it take to rebuild lifts if they were too heat stressed from massively intense fires?
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/12/27/3104861/california-driest-year-ever/?preview=true
If there’s a 1977 type dought or if the village and lifts burned, there’s no tot tax for the fledgling town. Would it be wise for the new managers to negotiate lots of ‘frustration’ and moritorium clauses into the Alimony deal with the county.
If you’re not here today, it’s pretty much the same even with teams (incl a LOT of SV teams) on hill today. Roundhouse not running, and only a tiny life (after 10:30) on Summit.
Half the lodge is taken up by boot /gear bags from race teams. These are the same people that usually bring their own lunch/snacks. It doesn’t really affect me, but I’d like to see them leave the front area open for food buying families and to be respectful of their heavier use of facilities and staff if not helping the hill with lunch purchases.
Now, where’d I stash my thermos of hot cocoa?
if the execs aren’t ‘on the beat’ they should be. If the execs are letting this slide, they need a kick. Ditto for the coaches.
Kathryn writes in the LT New about the IOV latest news. http://www.laketahoenews.net/2013/12/olympic-valley-wants-town/
How can the town negotiate water when their person on the water board didn’t know (or didn’t say) a thing about these pipes. How can the public transport be worked out when the town mass transit expert from a gov consultancy in AK didn’t say “Hey, $290 a bus seat is a bit expensive Andy’. How can the town negotiate a Museum site when they didn’t know things or weren’t told by that BoS.
They’re lucky so far that KSL very nicely decided to revise things. Will Placer play nicely too or are they seasoned bureaucrats who play a different game.
The Sierra Sun are impersonating a newspaper again, UA. Check out this “in depth” story
http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/northshore/9490623-113/valley-squaw-olympic-resort
FauxNews could do be better piece than that.