Western North America Conditions 2025/26

Tony Crocker said:
Not at all. It's all desert at 4,000 feet or lower until the last 30 miles.
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That's what I thought. Once you get outside of Mammoth, it's easy driving. You don't ever experience the potential of a 6-10 hour drive home with tons of slow and scary trucks.

This weekend could have been fun at Tahoe - specifically tree-skiing at Northstar. However, the snowline was at 8.5-9k feet yesterday (rain everywhere), everything needs to be resurfaced, and snowfall might continue into Monday, creating lots of difficult roads for a trip home.
 
I'm hearing from friends that the Cottonwoods got a foot of heavy snow on 1 Jan 2026.
 
More snow.
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The disparity between Schweitzer and Whitefish continues. Schweitzer has improved from 3% open Christmas Eve, but is still at only 41%. Fernie is up to 75% while Whitefish is 94% open.
 
The fun part of those lift lines is that probably 90% are locals coming out of the woodwork for a pow day, but they all fervently believe the lines are exclusivly from Ikon destination skiers.

As they say "We have met the enemy and it is us".
 
Other than the torchlight parade I participated in the other night at Brundage, I'm still waiting for the chance to get up on the mtn. I have midweek pass' at both Brundage and Tamarack that is invalid until Tuesday 1/6. While conditions here aren't good, it's been tough waiting this long for first turns.

However, i appreciate the pictures or craziness from other resorts (and I know it's been quite busy here)... that makes me feel a little better about not missing out on the madness.
 
EMSC said:
The fun part of those lift lines is that probably 90% are locals coming out of the woodwork for a pow day, but they all fervently believe the lines are exclusivly from Ikon destination skiers.
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Yep. It's locals loaded up with decently priced Ikon passes. I am sure 'unlimited' Solitude might have been worse.

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I am a bit doom-scrolling. I thought Tahoe might have good conditions/fresh snow this weekend, and Northstar can be fun storm skiing in its trees on the Backside and Lookout/Martis. However, storms started warm - rain/snow line 7-8k.


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Sometimes patience is in order. Mammoth’s upper lifts have not been open since before the Christmas storm. Hopefully we get a shot later this week. Anyone who follows Utah skiing should know that the recent modest storms were not going to open that much more terrain. So those lines were no surprise, and if they bother you, you should not be there.
 
socal said:
Without Canyon open
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Per Mammoth website dated 10:35AM, Canyon Lodge was not closed but chair 16 was (probably wind), forcing skiers at Canyon to use 17 and then 4 to cross the lower mountain. Chairs 1 and 2 were reported open, along with 8 and 15 going the other way from Canyon. Only these lifts open on a weekend are indeed a recipe for lift lines. Did you consider going to June?
 
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Tahoe (North Tahoe) was its normal Holiday Sh-tshow on Sunday, and almost the entire weekend.

Donner Pass/I-80 shut down during the afternoon/evening; some traffic was diverted to side roads, and it took everyone 6 hours to get to Sacramento or 8 to the Bay Area.

So great weekend: Saturday, rain or lifts not operating up-high at Palisades. Sunday, some snow, non-operating lifts up high - and major road closures.
 
ChrisC said:
So great weekend: Saturday, rain or lifts not operating up-high at Palisades. Sunday, some snow, non-operating lifts up high - and major road closures.
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All forecast by OpenSnow and probably anyone else who looked at weather models. Even though Mammoth didn't get the rain, we wanted no part of the past week.
 
Tony Crocker said:
All forecast by OpenSnow and probably anyone else who looked at weather models
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Oh yeah! I didn't go up / not worth it. I knew any trip would spill over into Monday for sanity's sake and because of the snow. However, Saturday was supposed to be a decent snow day, but it was not - stayed warm, some rain, and not much precip. And after 8.5k+ rain/snow line on Thursday/Friday.

Despite the new snow, the holidays were likely a bit marginal due to some high snow levels and winds/weather near the Sierra Crest.

I had one friend who kept searching for Parking Sports at Palisades for Saturday last week. Me: You are going to have 70-100 mph winds on the Sierra Crest so that things will be limited to Snow King/Red Dog and possibly KT. And that is what happened. Sometimes that's all you need in a storm, but not with holiday cowds.

However, lower/treed mountains like Homewood or Northstar were likely wet and manky - until Sunday. Sometimes, Mt. Rose can semi-operate in storms and is always above the rain/snow line, but that is not a given. Typically, I rarely try Diamond Peak/Incline, but it's a possibility.

Likely worth a visit to Kirkwood and possibly Heavenly next weekend.
 
Looking at SW Colorado snow conditions, I came across the variable lift ticket pricing table for Purgatory. I am a bit shocked! Daily tickets are reasonably priced to cheap on most weekdays in January.

I see $27 per day on Thursday, January 15th??!! What year? What country is this?


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