Wind Blown Snow
Last night I was watching the weather report on some television
The Unofficial Alpine Meadows Ski Report
Produced by Andy Wertheim
Tahoe/Truckee Realtor
email: andyw@sierra.net
Our real estate website: www.tahoeriverfrontrealty.com
Hello skiers,
Last night I was watching the weather report on some television channel when I noted the green blob being described as a huge, cold, snow event about to hit the Sierra for two days moving north not east. This often means that the big storm predicted is not materializing. I am not pretending to be the great predictor of weather, but this morning the ground was covered with three inches of new snow, not feet of snow. We did receive a few additional squalls during the day, but nothing like the winter storm warning that was supposed to last until 4pm
Tuesday. The sun was shining this afternoon and the temperature was in the mid thirties, but not it is snowing again. My theory is that we are not going to get three feet of light dry snow, but may a foot.
Today the winds were blowing again and rather strongly at the top of Summit. Scott was closed during the morning and Lakeview was shut all day. Not many people showed up to ski today, but the snowing was excellent. The mountain was “wind packed butter”, a phrase taught to me by a ski buddy. The well packed six inches of snow that fell during the wind storm last night was soft and smooth. Most of the mountain was the same consistency. We did find pockets of deeper and softer powder in the trees at Sherwood and in the area of Expert Shortcut. Tiegel Chutes were great again today for short untracked powder runs as was Sunspot and Gunners. Sympathy followed right along as did much of the rest of the mountain. The lack of skiers really afforded us an entire morning of fresh tracks. This wetter wind blown snow created plenty of small avalanches, so be careful in the backcountry.
Today’s tip, encase you have not realized it, is that Sherwood is now running on storm days when Summit, Scott, and Lakeviw may be shut down. I found this out last Friday when the entire mountain, with the exception of Roundhouse and Yellow was shut down for various reasons. There was not an announcement or sign declaring Sherwood to be open and accessible via Hot Wheels. I quit skiing when the line for Roundhouse got to be outrages as Summit closed. If I would have known that Sherwood was open, I might have headed over the hill for a few turns. Today, although Summit was open, I thought Sherwood was closed. We checked and found it to be open and headed over to try out the snow. We ended up staying all morning with a few other people making run after run in the fresh snow.
Enjoy your day. Andy
