It was certainly an action-packed weekend here at Palisades Tahoe. We have now received more than three feet of snow on our ridgelines since last Wednesday, and more storms continue to brew on the horizon. Thanks to the incredibly hard work of our operations teams, we were able to open Siberia and Shirley on Saturday afternoon, and the crew is out there right now prepping to expand even more. One thing we do want to note is that this latest band of the storm came in wet and heavy at the base area, so base area snow totals were not quite as large as we hoped for. Still, this dense snow is good to help build our long-term snowpack despite causing some icing issues on several lifts today. Top photo by Nick McMahon.
RECAP: Dec 4 at Alpine
As usual, Alpine has been old faithful throughout this storm cycle. The crews were able to pop Roundhouse a full 15 minutes early as snow continued to come down heavily. Yellow, Subway, and the Big Carpet opened as scheduled at 9am. Treeline Cirque was held a bit longer due to icing (more on that below) that affected the spacing of the chairs, but it eventually opened to mid-station around 10am. At 11:30am, Patrol performed avalanche control on Alpine Meadows Road. This is typical after a big snowfall, but it does result in temporary road closures, so it is a good thing to be aware of if you’re planning to visit Alpine on storm days or powder days.
Video: This video is from Palisades today. This is what our crews do to de-ice chairlifts! It is very manual work for the Lift Maintenance team.
RECAP: Dec 4 at Palisades
Prior to 8am, the Aerial Tram, Bailey’s Beach, and Mountain Meadows were put on wind hold. The Funitel, Gold Coast, Wa She Shu, Siberia, and Shirley were all placed on operational holds related to rime ice prior to 9am, but Resort Chair and First Ventures opened without a hitch right at 9. When our teams arrived this morning, Headwall was so frozen that we could not get Patrol up the chair to do work on the ridgeline. Instead, we sent them up in a troop carrier to the top of Siberia. They performed avalanche control work throughout the morning, and we briefly closed Homerun and Mountain Run to clear debris from a controlled slide. Siberia was pulled from the schedule today due to excessive build-up of rime ice.
Video: Check this out! Groomer Hunter Lamer took this video of the wild weather up on Siberia Ridge last night.
LOOKING AHEAD
Weather Forecast
We will see more snowfall overnight according to OpenSnow. Bryan Allegretto is predicting 4-8 inches at the base and 5-10 inches up on the mountain. We could see scattered storms throughout tomorrow and into Tuesday morning as well. Tuesday through Thursday should be pretty clear, fun days. The next storm appears to be moving in on Thursday, so winds could return then.
Lift + Terrain Updates: Alpine
- Summit is still at the top of our list. We did not get the 24 inches of snow we need, but there’s still a chance to get some tonight, and we are going to do our best to get it open even if we don’t hit the ideal 24-inch snow total. Crews will be focusing their efforts on Summit starting tomorrow morning and we expect it to open midweek.
- We might not get Treeline Cirque open to the top right away. We will re-assess depending on how tonight’s snowfall goes.
- Meadow is still being repaired and we anticipate it will reopen midweek.
Lift + Terrain Updates: Palisades
- After getting Shirley, Siberia, and Wa She Shu open earlier than expected, Solitude is next on our list.
- We are going to assess Granite Chief once we’re through this storm cycle and begin working on it this week.
- We have been doing control work on KT-22 throughout this whole storm cycle. We do still need more snow here — We typically need 3-4 feet of heavy wet snow in order to get this lift open. We will re-assess KT-22 after this coming weekend’s storm. We still have to build an access road up West Face. Reminder: We want to ski this lift as badly as you do!!
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