Spring weather officially went back into hibernation last week: We have received more than 3 feet of snow on the upper mountain in the last 7 days. There are still some sunny days sprinkled throughout the forecast, but there’s serious snow in coming the next few days, too. We have a Winter Weather Warning from the National Weather Service from tonight through Friday evening. This storm could bring an additional two feet (or more) to our upper mountain here at Palisades. All this new snow can’t offset everything we lost in the record dry spell of January, February, and March, but it is going to help prolong the life of the lifts that are in good shape. We are officially extending our closing day to May 15th, 2022. You’ll definitely want to read the full details below so that you understand our plan.
Lift, Terrain, & Conditions Updates
- We have moved our Closing Day from May 1st, 2022 to May 15th. If we have the option to extend the season for even longer, we will. As usual, we will have Lake Tahoe’s longest ski season.
- After May 1st, we will be going to WEEKENDS ONLY. That’s Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So 5/6, 5/7, 5/8, and 5/13, 5/14, & 5/15.
- We will provide an update on both Granite Chief and Wa She Shu in another operations blog on Friday. Wa She Shu is experiencing a mechanical issue today, so we are putting a team on it tomorrow. Stay tuned.
- With this week’s big storm, expect weather impacts through Friday, especially on upper mountain lifts. We have more on the weather forecast below.
- Since we will likely be getting a significant amount of snowfall, there could be some delays on Saturday morning while our patrollers perform avalanche control.
C2 Bowl this morning at Palisades. Taken by J. Gemperle.
This Week’s Storm
- Heavy snowfall will begin tonight. Accumulation of up to 10 inches is possible.
- Snow showers throughout the day are expected on Thursday. There’s also the possibility of thunderheads, so lightning impacts are possible. Accumulation of up to 18 inches is possible.
- Overnight on Thursday, we could see another 7 inches of snow.
- By Friday, snow will be trailing off and we’ll only see an inch or so of accumulation. Winter weather impacts could continue throughout the day.
- Roads will likely be impacted for the next three days, so make sure you are familiar with the information on our Road Conditions & Tahoe Travel page.
Photos taken by Ski Patroller Zach Williams this week.
If You’re Visiting This Weekend…
If you’re visiting this weekend, don’t miss the second weekend of the Spring Tracks concert featuring legendary DJ Paul Oakenfold or the family-friendly Tahoe Truckee Earth Day. We’ve got the full details on that in our Weekend Events Blog. It could be busy here, so remember: You can take advantage of our POW Carpool parking lot or use our free Mountaineer shuttle service.
Your Questions Answered
Will Alpine re-open since we got so much snow? As you may have read in Saturday’s blog, we scheduled Alpine to close a few weeks ago when winter looked like it was over. This is a non-negotiable closure to begin work on our summer projects at Alpine. We have both a new snowmaking system going in at Weasel and timber clearing that we need to do for the U.S. Forest Service. Although we now have more snow, those plans are locked in and we need to start work on them to complete them prior to next season. We will be dedicating any remaining resources to keeping more lifts spinning on the Palisades side. For those of you who are wondering about the base-to-base gondola, we will be providing an update on that project next month.
Will KT-22 re-open? At this time, we still do not plan on re-opening any base area lifts that have closed for the season. Most importantly, we still do not have enough snow to re-build a new access road for snowcats on these lifts, including KT-22. If we did get enough snow, it is not as simple as flipping a switch to get the lift running again. There are days of prep work for our patrol, maintenance & operator teams, such as building ramps, adding fencing, and clearing the chairs after the storm. If we DID have enough snow, by the time that prep work is finished up, we’ll be in a warming period again next week.
