Over 15 feet in January #januBURIED
We keep climbing the snowfall ladder! In fact, we broke our 45 year record of snowfall in January…and it’s only January 13! We’re slowly but surely getting terrain open.
Quick look into today’s operations
Lakeview Zone opened today for the first time this season and conditions were goooooood.
Pow turns with Michelle Parker this morning at Squaw Valley
Squaw Valley
The following lifts opened at Squaw today:
- Aerial Tram
- Funitel
- Exhibition
- Far East
- Squaw Creek
- Red Dog
- Olympic Lady
- KT-22
- Squaw One
- Gold Coast Express
- Bailey’s Beach
- Mountain Meadow
- Big Blue Express
- Broken Arrow
- Shirley Lake Express
- First Venture
- SnoVentures Carpet
- Tucker Carpet
Alpine Meadows
The following lifts opened at Alpine today:
- Hot Wheels
- Meadow
- Subway
- Roundhouse
- Yellow Chair
- Lakeview
- Scott
- Kangaroo
- Big Carpet
- Little Carpet
Field Notes: Summit and Sherwood were on the schedule to open and they didn’t, unfortunately. Here’s why:
- Summit was experiencing winds in the 80s-90s and we can not run lifts in those conditions. Check out what the weather sensor was recording below.
- Sherwood was experiencing electrical issues today. Our lift electricians have been working on it all day and it will be opening at 8:30am tomorrow!
Winds were howling up at the top of Summit today. And while it seemed mellow and nice at the base area or at other chairs, this is what the top terminal looked like. Shot by our Mountain Manager.
A look into weekends operations
Parking will be difficult due to limited snow storage. We encourage you to carpool with friends and family or use public transportation this weekend.
Squaw Valley
- All lifts on the schedule are slated to open at 8:30am (with exception of Granite Chief).
- Granite Chief scheduled to open at 9am.
- Siberia on the schedule to open tomorrow, but teams need to perform more control work and clear the lift of ice.
- Headwall Express: crews continue to work on this beast of a lift, but with it being buried, damage done to top lift shack and ice buildup, it’s taking a little more time so we can’t give an approximate day or time of when it will open.
Alpine Meadows
- All lifts on the schedule are slated to open at 8:30am
Terrain Delays
Some of you may be wondering why we had delays on lifts and terrain in the past couple of days. To recap, here’s what we’ve been working with to get our mountains open:
- Over 15 feet of snow since January 1
- Winds exceeding 170mph
- Flooding
- Unstable snow conditions
- Regional power outage
- Buried chairlifts
- Frozen chairlifts
Check out some of the photos from our mountain operations teams…
Alpine Bowl Chair buried in snow
Granite Chief buried in snow.
Headwall Express buried in snow
Emigrant chairlift covered in ice
