Operations

After one of the most remarkable winters in recent memory, closing weekend for the Palisades side of the resort has finally come. Alpine, of course, will still be open through the 4th of July for skiing and riding, and summer operations for the Palisades side will begin in mid-June. Here’s what to expect over the coming weeks:

Have you ever wondered how we maintain our ski runs as the snow starts to melt? There is a TON of work that goes on behind-the-scenes to move and shape existing snow into the mountain you see each morning. This is no simple task, and it requires a decent amount of experience and expertise from our seasoned snowcat operators, but there are tools to help make it easier. We’re going to take a look at SnowSat, the technology that PistenBully snowcats come equipped with.

Our terrain parks are designed to challenge riders of all levels, from beginner to expert, and to provide a fun and safe experience for everyone. Our dedicated terrain park crew works tirelessly to maintain and improve our parks throughout the season, constantly adding new features and updating layouts to keep things fresh. Here’s a deeper look at the work they do.

As we move into warmer weather and head toward the month of May, we wanted to give you a brief update on what to expect over the next few weeks. Please note: ALL of our operations are subject to change based on conditions. This update is our BEST GUESS for what we’ll be seeing. Things can change rapidly in the springtime as the snow melts.

We have had back-to-back sunny days for the first time in what feels like forever. After an incredible first half of the season, (that’s right, half — we’ll be open until the 4th of July) it sure is nice to have a small taste of spring weather. With several months of the ski season still ahead, we know you have questions about what lifts & terrain will be open moving forward. While we don’t have all the answers quite yet, we wanted to post an update with our most recent information.

It’s going to be a summer to remember: We will be skiing and snowboarding at Alpine on the 4th of July. Yes, you read that correctly. We’re keeping Alpine open through the 4th of July this year!

This is different than the recent years when we’ve been open on the 4th. Typically, we run the Funitel at Palisades up to the upper mountain throughout the warmer months, but this year, we have a large project to complete on the Funitel that will prevent us from operating it past May 29th.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, March 15th, we plan to reopen both Alpine and Palisades. We appreciate your patience with us being closed today: Our teams NEEDED this day to try to get ahead a bit, and snow conditions are not conducive to a good day of skiing — It rained as far up as 9,000 feet at times. We spent the day continuing to dig out, performing snow safety, addressing flood zones, and preparing for the few days ahead that have a break in the weather. Tomorrow, we still expect that some of our lifts will be delayed. We will start with a lower mountain offering and expand throughout the day as we can.

Tonight, another wet storm moves into the Tahoe area. Winds are projected to be over 100 miles per hour on our ridgelines. Normally, this would …

Following a very wet 36 hours, we achieved the opening goals we set yesterday and got every lift that we expected today, thanks to the hard work of our ops teams. Seriously, it is hard work out there: So many people are out there digging chairlifts out by hand after spending the early morning hours digging their vehicles and homes out first. Our snowpack is very saturated with water and heavy, which can also make things difficult for our grooming machines. We truly have no clear days in the forecast to recover from this wet weather event, so we appreciate your patience.