The vibes were strong today with beautiful blue skies and lots of people skiing around in costumes and having a grand old time. WinterWonderGrass is currently running at the base of Palisades Tahoe from now through Sunday. The crowds were out enjoying the slopes in the first half of the day and thinned out significantly around 2pm as people got too tired from the heavy snow and made their way down to the music venue.
It was really too bad for those folks because they missed out on some amazing corn turns on KT in the afternoon. West Face and Chute 75 had some amazing corn snow from about 1pm onwards. I’m going to hand West Face the award for best run of the day today from 1-3pm.
There was another freeze overnight, which is what we want this time of year. Without that overnight freeze, the day starts out soft and becomes almost unskiable (too slushy and sticky) by mid-day. With an overnight freeze, you start the day with some firmer runs, but it means we get good skiing later into the day. It’s important to look at what the overnight temps were at the mountain the night before when making plans for your ski day. If there is not an overnight freeze, you need to get out to the resort as early as possible to get your runs in. If there is a solid freeze overnight, you can take your time a bit more in the morning while the slopes soften from the sun in the morning.
It was great to see so many people out on the hill today in costumes and enjoying the general vibes of the WinterWonderGrass festival. There was a fun music set playing mid-mountain at Gold Coast during lunch and there was also music playing throughout the village.
It should be more of the same tomorrow and rumor is that it may be the last day of our beloved Mothership (KT-22) tomorrow. Come get it while you can!