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. We say spring weather because conditions have not exactly been spring-like at all times; there’s a lot of variety to how the terrain has been skiing and it is totally dependent on your location on the mountain. It’s fun out there, but it’s a good time of year to be following the sun throughout the day.
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.
Photo above: Austin Oulette, Palisades Grooming Supervisor
Weather Outlook
Currently, we are just a few inches shy of hitting 700″ of snowfall since the season began, and there’s a possibility we could hit that milestone on Friday, April 7th. While it is likely that we will see some rain in The Village, the Alpine base and everything above could see anywhere from 1-5 inches of snow. Beyond this storm, there is the possibility of a little bit of weather next weekend, but otherwise, we are looking at a mostly dry period. You can get near-daily weather updates on our Weather Blog.
Lift & Terrain Updates
- This Saturday, April 8th, we will be keeping both Summit at Alpine and KT-22 at Palisades open for an extra hour of skiing. We will be doing this every Saturday in April if weather & conditions allow.
- As a reminder, the last day for the Base to Base Gondola is April 30th.
- Currently, we are keeping our operating hours as 9am-4pm. This may shift as we get into the warmer months, but nothing is confirmed yet.
Terrain Parks
- The Tiegel Terrain Park got a refresh last night.
- Tiegel and Belmont will both stay open until April 23rd.
- After April 23rd, we will be putting all of our efforts into the Gold Coast Terrain Park for the month of May.
- After May 30th, we will switch gears and have a park offering in Howard’s Hollow at Alpine through the 4th of July.
Silverado
We hope to run Silverado again this season. When it re-opens, it will likely just be the Smoothie and Oregon Trail. We also expect that it will have limited operating hours in the mornings only. We have been continuing to maintain the access road as well as the chairlift throughout the recent storm cycles, but in order for it to be possible to re-open this chair, we need a 4-5 day stretch of sunshine & snowmelt during the day with cold temps and refreeze at night to give us true “spring conditions.” Plus, Patrol will also need to complete hill safety & boundary work. We’re probably going to be looking at later in April for a re-opening date, and we will share that date as soon as we have one.
Reminder: Review Our Spring Operating Schedule
We’re doing things a bit differently this year, the most exciting part being that Alpine will be staying open for the 4th of July for the first time since 2011! Here is what to expect this spring and summer:
- In April, both Palisades and Alpine will be open 7 days a week.
- In May, Alpine will be open Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
- In May, Palisades will be open Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.
- The Funitel’s last day will be Monday, May 29th. We will be spending about 6 weeks replacing the haul rope for this lift.
- The Aerial Tram will close on Monday, May 29th.
- In June, Alpine will be open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for skiing & snowboarding.
- The Aerial Tram at Palisades will re-open for sightseeing and activities for the second two weekends in June: June 16th-18th and June 23rd-25th. It will open for daily operations starting June 30th.
- In July, we will be open for skiing & snowboarding from July 1st through 4th at Alpine only. The Village at Palisades Tahoe will be open daily during the month of July.
You can review the full information on spring & summer operating hours here.
PHOTO GALLERY: BEHIND THE SCENES
Here are a few shots from our grooming and lift maintenance teams from the past couple weeks.
Buried signage at Alpine
Photo: Nick McMahon
Rime ice at the top of Emigrant. Photo: Marcus Morgan
Photo: Nick Brackins
Photo: @6bn6dt6
Photo: Nick Brackins
Photo: Nick McMahon
Photo: @6bn6dt6
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HOW ELSE CAN I STAY UP-TO-DATE THIS SEASON?
We’ll arm you with all the information you need to plan the perfect ski day any day this winter. Bookmark these pages:
Not wanting to check the website constantly? Try these other methods:
- Follow our Mountain Operations Twitter account
- Sign up for the Palisades Tahoe Ski & Ride Report (Weather Blogs + Conditions Blogs are included here)
- Download the Palisades Tahoe App
Do you have any requests for this season’s Operations Blogs? Topics you’d like to see covered or information you think is missing? Send us an email at chatter@palisadestahoe.com with your feedback. We have received a lot of messages lately, and we are getting back to you one by one. Thanks for being patient!
