The lifts started turning early on this beautiful, bluebird day. The snow was consistent, fast, and grippy, and we’re looking forward to tomorrow’s refresh.
This report was written by James Yim.
With all the recent snow and the blue skies today, we knew that the masses would be making their way to the mountain. I got an early start and made it to the Alpine parking lot by 8:15 am to ensure a timely start to the day. On these busy weekends, the traffic can get very backed up, so it’s ideal to get to the mountain early.
To my surprise, the lifts started loading at Alpine before 9am. I’m glad I decided to walk over early, as Subway was already loading by the time I got there at 8:50, as were TLC, Roundhouse, and Summit.
The beautiful sunshine and blue skies lured me to some sunny aspects to start the day. I took TLC to the top and found chalky bumps coming down the expert shortcut. This pitch off of TLC gets excellent morning sun and a fantastic view of Lake Tahoe from the top. After some warm-up bumps, we hit the Weasel trail, which was groomed to perfection. The cold overnight temps have kept the groomers very nice the last few days.
By about 10 am, the lines started to grow at Alpine. It was fantastic to jump on the Base to Base Gondola for love on the Mothership (KT-22). We kept the theme of sunny slopes, so we ventured to the East Face. We found some fantastic, chalky bumps with just the right amount of wind-blown snow in the troughs. The snow was very consistent, fast, and grippy. I could have skied that five more times, but we decided to see what we could find on Headwall instead.
Headwall also had excellent wind-buff snow coming down The Face and around The Slot. It was great to get a bluebird day in before we get another refresh tomorrow.
