The Truckee Safeway is in full holiday mode. It’s that time of year where you know you’re in trouble when zero carts are available in the corral. Ski and board season is definitely here, and the crowds are beginning to show up in earnest.
Here’s the updates we heard today:
• Squaw Valley will open lifts at the 8200′ level beginning Thursday. The lifts on tap include Gold Coast, Shirley & Solitude, as well as some other minor lifts. This will certainly help to spread traffic around the mountain, avoiding the crowding seen on Red Dog last Thanksgiving.
• Boreal will also open to the top Thursday, offering the Accelerator Quad for the first time this season.
• There was no update from Alpine Meadows…unless you count the lack of an Alpine Meadows announcement made by our Squaw Valley overlords.
The weather should be quite a bit calmer for the weekend. The last wave of the current cut-off low is expected to run its course tonight, leaving only a few inches of snow. We then enter a period of relative quiet through the weekend.
The extended forecast is once again looking very interesting. A number of models are again beginning to paint the picture of a very wet scenario. Paul at the TahoeWeatherBlog is showing the EC precip model from 11/29 through 12/7 and it looks impressive. We would be in great shape if we got half of the 10″ of precip in the model. The EC model has done a pretty good job of predicting the precip amounts. It’s the snow levels that have been tricky in the last few weeks. 