There’s a few things we have not yet been able to confirm over the weekend. Here’s what we have heard:
• Alpine Meadows is working to move up its opening date to avoid the ugliness of being the last resort to open in Tahoe. Andy Wirth’s cheerful email this afternoon makes no promises about what date that may be. When Alpine Meadows started making snow intently last week, it was clear that something was up. The days that make the most sense would be a soft opening on the Wednesday the 21st or Friday the 23rd, but another blog is reporting December 2nd, which is not so exciting. The current weather forecast is all over the place with snow levels and freezing levels and we’re sure that will impact any decisions.
• Third hand, there was a serious accident at Alpine Meadows Saturday. I heard entirely different versions of what injuries were involved, but a rescue and air transport were required. Luckily, the Alpine Meadows patrollers were training that day and were involved in the rescue. Evidently, it was a very serious situation. Again, a friendly reminder that skinning and hiking at a resort that is not open is the equivalent of backcountry skiing. Skiing and riding in backcountry conditions is more likely to result in injury or death. Update: The victim is a young female who sustained a head injury after hitting a rock, even while wearing a helmet. The victim was not responsive on rescue and has not improved yet. In this situation, a fatality may have been certain if Alpine patrol was not on the scene. More details are being withheld for privacy reasons. Please be careful out there!
• The weather often goes in the area of “unconfirmed rumor”. Everyone seems to agree that the storm later this week is no big deal, with around a foot of accumulation at a relatively high snow level. But confidence in an extremely snowy pattern developing for Thanksgiving week is growing. This was hinted at by the EC models last week. The GFS model is beginning to get in sync with that idea. NOAA is getting on board too. Things can change, but check out Paul’s post at the TahoeWeatherBlog.com. BA at TahoeWeatherDiscussion.com is also seeing this larger storm on the horizon too. We sure hope we see confirmation on this from the snow gods next week!
• And this just in…heard the first inkling that the Alpine Meadows boundary will extend all of the way to Grouse Rock this year. Totally unconfirmed…but this is a rumors post, isn’t it?
Mark,
Some more info about the incident: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/annalisekjolhede/journal
RIP Annalise.
Editors note: The link above will tell you exactly what happened and the end result for Annalise. It is quite graphic in describing the details of the event and the medical followup. I am hoping to do a more moderate post on this very soon.