Spring officially begins on March 20th this year, but we got an early taste of it today at Alpine. It was a typical spring skiing day at Alpine that provided great turns from start to finish if you followed the sun.
The groomers on the front side of the mountain were all skiing very well first thing in the morning. Weasel, Charity, Alpine Bowl, and Wolverine Bowl were my favorite groomed runs to start the day. It was nice to have some wide-open terrain to let the skis run.
I never actually made it over to the Sherwood side today but I had heard that it got soft early and had some great slush bump skiing.
One unexpected treat that I found today was some sneaker Kangaroo laps after the race team broke down just before noon. There was still some leftover untouched corduroy from race training that was soft hero snow with no speed limit. I did a few laps there with friends before jumping back onto Summit.
My two favorite Summit laps from the morning were D8 (steep, chalky turns) to the Face (chalk bumps) and Palisades (chalky bumps) to Deer Camp (chalky bumps).
By afternoon, it was time to move over to Lakeview and Scott. Lakeview had some nice heavy corn turns. Some people would call it slush, but I thought it was fun soft snow.
By 2:30pm, it was time for the main event. Patrol finally opened Scott Chute, which had been marinating in the sun all day and boy was it worth it. I did 4 straight laps in Scott Chute and it was big soft corny bumps. After the 4th lap, the group decided to call it and head down for beers but I still had an itch for some more turns. I ended up going back for one more summit lap and D8 was still holding those chalky, smooth turns. Pro tip: ski the right and left edges of D8. Most people seem to ski down the middle and push the soft snow to the edges.
It was a fun spring ski day, but I’m looking forward to some bits of winter over the next week.
