Another Good Day & Questions Of The Day

The report for today is that things just keep getting better around Alpine Meadows. Everything that was good yesterday was for the most part also good today. There were some significant crowds this morning, with the bulk of that traffic being teams from both Alpine and Squaw. By lunchtime the masses thinned out and the mountain was relatively empty.

Some areas of the mountain benefitted from additional traffic breaking up the icy surface. A number of lines were put down in Pygmy Forest, while a few people even ventured out to Palisades. Warmer temps over the next two days may continue to improve these areas. The Face was “broken in” today too. There were few signs of breakable crust left and that meant that The Face became something more than a survival challenge. Conditions improved similarly on the west face of Gunner’s Knob.

We heard two questions over and over today:

1) Where’s Kate?

We certainly noticed some moments of frustration today where line control just was not happening efficiently. Although Summit 6 was quite busy both Saturday and Sunday, partially loaded chairs were going up pretty frequently. That’s not a problem if there’s only a few people in line – but often this weekend, with a small corral, the lines extended past the RFID gates. Some of the staff made a pretty good effort at keeping things moving, but others were not so effective. it seems like we need Kate (or Karen) to really get people moving efficiently in the early season. Maybe the new liftees just need scepters.

2) Is it really going to snow this week?

There’s still that crowd that insists that weather forecasters never get it right. if you pay any attention to this site, or directly to local weather sources, they are right most of the time. We now have NOAA and two of the local bloggers calling for snow in the Tues-Thurs time frame and again over the weekend. Here’s the 6-10 day forecasts:

This looks like a far better picture than the last time we presented it on November 25th.

And lastly, I’m inspired by by friend Stev. I’ve mentioned his passion before, as he is on somewhere around 110 consecutive months of skiing. Today, he took advantage of the new partnership between Sierra At Tahoe and Squalpine; good snow conditions on the slopes and good driving conditions on the roads. Today he covered six resorts in one day: Northstar, Squaw, Alpine Meadows, Heavenly, Sierra At Tahoe and Kirkwood – all in one day. Given that he went to Mammoth yesterday, that makes seven resorts in one weekend. My record is only three. Great job Stev!