Operations

When the autumn chill moves into the Tahoe region, those thoughts of impending winter start to creep back in. For our snowmaking department, this is when the season starts. Our snowmakers take a lot of pride in being the ones to kick off winter. The heavy anticipation of what’s to come is ingrained in the work that they do. Once they’ve started making a significant amount of snow, other departments like Grooming can start work, too, and before you know it, winter has begun.

The closing celebration of the historic 2022-23 winter season is here! We’ll be saying goodbye to winter with skiing, t-shirt giveaways, live music, and more at Alpine. We’ve also got some warm temperatures in the forecast and a new parking program for this event. Here’s what to expect.

This summer, we will be replacing the haul rope on the Funitel. The haul rope is the main cable you see carrying cabins to and from the upper mountain. This project has been scheduled for over two years: it is a major and necessary maintenance project that requires significant advance planning. Crews from the lift manufacturer will be coming from Europe to assist with this project as well. We’ll be posting updates to this blog each time something exciting happens with this project.

Have you ever wondered how we maintain our ski runs as the snow starts to melt? There is a TON of work that goes on behind-the-scenes to move and shape existing snow into the mountain you see each morning. This is no simple task, and it requires a decent amount of experience and expertise from our seasoned snowcat operators, but there are tools to help make it easier. We’re going to take a look at SnowSat, the technology that PistenBully snowcats come equipped with.

Our terrain parks are designed to challenge riders of all levels, from beginner to expert, and to provide a fun and safe experience for everyone. Our dedicated terrain park crew works tirelessly to maintain and improve our parks throughout the season, constantly adding new features and updating layouts to keep things fresh. Here’s a deeper look at the work they do.

As we move into warmer weather and head toward the month of May, we wanted to give you a brief update on what to expect over the next few weeks. Please note: ALL of our operations are subject to change based on conditions. This update is our BEST GUESS for what we’ll be seeing. Things can change rapidly in the springtime as the snow melts.

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. 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.

It’s going to be a summer to remember: We will be skiing and snowboarding at Alpine on the 4th of July. Yes, you read that correctly. We’re keeping Alpine open through the 4th of July this year!

This is different than the recent years when we’ve been open on the 4th. Typically, we run the Funitel at Palisades up to the upper mountain throughout the warmer months, but this year, we have a large project to complete on the Funitel that will prevent us from operating it past May 29th.