Alpine Meadows, CA, Feb. 9, 2021

Tony Crocker

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Staff member
The pictures will look like I brought the Idaho weather with me to the Sierra, but it was not quite the same. The OpenSnow forecast was for a bit of snow Tuesday, starting with a snow line of 7,000 feet. So Alpine with its higher base looked like a better call than Squaw. The fog I encountered on the Sierra Crest reinforced that view.

I warmed up on the Roundhouse lift, which serves the lower half of Alpine’s vertical, with two groomers and a tentative foray on Sympathy Face. The latter looked like windsift but was probably the inch of reported new high density snow.

I had not been to Alpine since the Treeline Cirque lift was installed, so I next rode that and skied to Sherwood. Open and south facing Sherwood had gone to spring conditions during the past sunny week, so there was a crunchy subsurface and I stuck to the groomer. I returned to the frontside via Our Father.
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I was late with the camera and just missed getting two skiers in the chute.

Halfway down it opens up and there was a decent new snow layer.
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After another Roundhouse cruiser I ventured up Summit. View of Roundhouse lift and some runs with sun partially illuminating the lower mountain:
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But the upper half of Summit remains in heavy fog.
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There was also moderate wind at the top. Fortunately there are enough lift towers and scattered trees along Peril Ridge to provide skiing orientation. D8 had excellent wind packed powder. I continued with more of the same in Wolverine Bowl, on skier’s right near the trees for reference. Lower down the Face had a variable subsurface.

I then sampled the other side, riding Scott and then taking two runs on Lakeview. Lakeview had also been through a spring transition last week, but the two groomers were still OK. View riding Lakeview:
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I returned to the base for a break and snack. The tables normally used for indoor dining are used to form a corridor leading to the restrooms.
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There is limited cafeteria service but you must take your food outside. By this time I noticed that fog and mist seemed to be condensing on everything: goggles which needed to be wiped periodically, plus clothing and the outside dining tables.

When I resumed skiing I noticed that there was likely condensation on the snow surface too. Runs that had been packed powder in the morning felt more springlike, and you can tell from the pics that it wasn’t due to sun.

I skied Scott Chute, which I had read online was difficult. I stayed far skier’s left in the shade to avoid most of what had melt/frozen last week. After one more run on Roundhouse and two on Summit I stopped at 1:30 with 18,400 vertical. Snow even on higher and north facing aspects seemed to be getting heavier. The weather was forecast to lighten up in the afternoon but it seemed to be getting worse. There is supposed to be a break in the weather tomorrow, so I thought it best to save energy for that.
 
Tony Crocker":198latid said:
I returned to the base for a break and snack. The tables normally used for indoor dining are used to form a corridor leading to the restrooms.
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Interesting how many different ways F&B facilities nationwide are dealing with the pandemic, from outright closure to only serving takeout food to allowing people to sit inside in distanced ways. In some cases, lodges look basically like business as usual. This one resembles the abandoned London supermarket in the "28 Days Later" zombie movie.
 
There is no indoor dining allowed in California counties in the purple code, which for now is nearly all of them. I broke up my 7+ hour drive home yesterday with dinner in a large tent at Harris Ranch.

The more common situation is probably what I observed at Alta/Snowbird. There you are only allowed inside for a sit down restaurant reservation. We thought that was worth doing at Deer Valley. At GMD at Alta you are not even allowed inside to use the restroom. At the Collins base you must got to the upstairs restrooms in the ticket office/ski shop building.

Richard was recently in Vail and Keystone and found this a real inconvenience with temperatures in the 10F range. We made a walk-up reservation at Deer Valley but Vail resorts require the restaurant reservations be made online starting at 7AM and Richard had some difficulty there, only succeeding on his last day.

James will be pleased to learn that he's more likely to be allowed inside to rest, warm up or brown bag at the mom-and-pop places. Bogus Basin's indoor facility looks like Alpine Meadows' but they have set up a tent with space heaters where you can rest and/or eat your lunch. Brighton and Brundage had normal inside lunchroom tables though at reduced capacity for distancing.
 
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