2010 Ski Season: Day 25-Alpine Meadows

Location: Alpine Meadows
Date: 5/9/2010
Conditions: Spring



Break out the balloon, I made my target of 25 days. We were 2 of about 240 people on the mountain Sunday. I have to say, getting up to the top of Alpine Bowl at 9:15 for the above shot made my day.

The next special thing happened 3/4 the way down the first run. As I came down the middle of the slope alone, I spotted a critter scampering across the snow. I skied over to his hideout, a well for the snowmaking equipment long-since turned off, and saw him up close. It was a groundhog. I sat 5 feet downhill from him and he stared at me. After a while, the woodchuck gave up his hiding spot and scurried across the rest of the run and safely into the trees. I don't think another soul saw him.

The day was much colder than I would have anticipated. The sun only lasted for the first couple of runs before the sky turned gray. By the last run of the day, wouldn't you know it, it started to snow!

That's it for this season, tune in next year folks.

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2010 Ski Season: Day 21-Alpine Meadows

Location: Alpine Meadows
Conditions: Soft Snow, Spring, Bluebird
Date: 4/7/2010

Alpine Meadows remains one of my favorite resorts. Skiing solo on a mid-week trip, I was determined to rack up some serious vertical footage. I hit the backside all morning and came back down the Expert Shortcut, one of my favorite runs there. The run of the day was through Pallisades. Great snow, great moguls, nice and steep, and all to myself.

Here's the stats for the day and the map:

26617 vertical feet
52 miles


View Track 15 in a larger map

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2010 Ski Season: Day 17-Alpine

Location: Alpine Meadows
Date: 3/13/2010
Conditions: Variable

Jodi and I took the Summit Six lift and traversed/hiked along the high traverse to Sun Bowl. While the cornice getting into the bowl was a bit dicey for one of us, the skiing was fantastic.

That night, we headed to our favorite bankrupt casino straddling the California/Nevada border and rested up for Day 2 on the overnight Bay Area Ski Bus trip.

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2010 Ski Season: Day 8-Alpine

Location: Alpine Meadows
Date: 1/22/2010
Conditions: Pow pow

Special live blog brought to you from the Bus somewhere near Danville, CA.

With the biggest storm of the season rolling and trips planned p to Kirkwood and Sierra-at-Tahoe already on deck I had the last minute opprutunity to ski the pow pow at Alpine. Of course, I jumped.

We arrived at Alpine after a hectic ride involving snow chains, traffic, and ski videos.

The view was worth it:



I literally bolted out of the bus with my boots under my arm and my balaclava and helmet on my head. I was greeted by the BASB coordinator (Hi Tammy). I took Subway up and went directly to Hot Wheels for some early pow.

I headed over to Scott chair and poached the Promised Land. Face shots!

I hit the front bowls, I hit the back bowls, I wiped out, ALOT. The fabled double eject yardsale was a common occurrence. Early that morning I wondered why all the loc's were rocking streamers behind their skis. After 4 times trying to dig out my Mantras from the fluff I started to piece it together.

Another first for today? GPS tracking of all my runs. Top speed?

36.9 mi/h

Max Grade: 45 %



Vert?

17961 ft

Full details

The snow was DEEP. You think you've got what it takes to ski 48" of fresh? See me tomorrow at Kirkwood.

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2010 Ski Season: Day 3-Alpine Meadows

Location: Alpine Meadows
Date: 1/2/2010
Conditions: Packed Powder

We headed up to Lake Tahoe Friday, New Years Day, for a long weekend at the new Bay Area Ski Bus cabin. After chowing on some lunch at ToGo's our host and BASB owner Brian picked us up in Sunnyvale in a converted 15 passenger van. We loaded up my trusty Volkl Mantra 184s on the roof rack and met up with 4 boarders who were going up with us, Gary, Justin, Kosgey, and Emily. We chatted with Brian as we headed to SF to pick up Diane, the 8th member for the inaugural cabin trip.

We got news of the the Kirkwood Fire some tasty margaritas at Truckee's La Bamba. To avoid the disaster, Brian wisely re-routed his 6 buses scheduled to hit the fire-damaaged resort over to Alpine where we would ski the next morning. We came back to the cabin where a wood-burning stove warmed the entrance and a heated hot tub waited for us on the back deck.

Saturday morning, we were up and atem by 7:00 AM. A quick breakfast and we loaded up the van to hit Alpine Meadows for our first trip of the new year. Alpine has definitely upped their customer service game. Before we even got out of the van we had lift tickets in hand and a mountain host offering to carry our skis to the mountain. I took a few warm up laps on Hot Wheels while Jodi sorted out her rental skis. She got some nice Volkl all-mountain skis and we quickly headed to Alpine's back side to enjoy the sunshine.

On the way back to the front side, I had a minor slip that almost cost me dearly on Expert Shortcut. I caught an edge about 10 feet above a large exposed rock cliff and lost a ski. Luckily, I knew the boulder was there so I dug my ski poles into the ground to arrest my slide over the face. It took a long while to click back in but I skied down to the base where Jodi was waiting with a quizzical look wondering what took so long and how she managed to beat me down.

After a quick noon break we hooked up with Brian for some turns in Alpine Bowl, where the photo of Jodi and me above was taken. Brian rips, so any of you who want to try to keep up with him, I suggest you sharpen skis and prepare for an all-out assault on the mountain. We also met up with host Mario and Sliding on the Cheap creator Daryl.

We skied the rest of the afternoon with Brian and Diane and tackled some mogul runs as well as some easier stuff before wrapping up for the day. On the last run of the day we ran into David who runs the Alpine website and saw him shooting his little ripper kids in the terrain park.


Alpine is a fantastic mountain. If you make it there, be sure to find your way to the backside and explore Sherwood. I'm still looking for fabled Munchkins. Next time I'll track down one of the locals to show me the way.

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2009 Ski Season: Day 17

Hi From Lake Tahoe
Originally uploaded by dmourati

Location: Alpine Meadows
Date: 3/7/2009
Conditions: Groomed, powder, soft

The day started off on a sour note when our Bay Area Ski Bus host was late to arrive in Santa Clara. We waited for her for 20 minutes then finally took off only to make 4 more stops on the trip to Tahoe City.

Stop 1: pick up more folks in San Francisco

Stop 2: pick up more folks in Oakland plus our missing host

Stop 3: pick up more folks in Walnut Creek

Stop 4: pick up lift tickets in Truckee

Finally, we made it to Alpine Meadows about 9:30 AM.

I was on promo duty so I helped my main man Tom carry what seemed like a 100 pound plus tent through the parking lot and up to the base of the mountain. Ordinarily, it would not have been a big deal but in ski boots, walking across a parking lot, carrying skis, poles, and a 100 pound tent is not the best way to start out the day. After finally erecting this monster, I was anxious to get in a milk run. Tom and i hit Hot Wheels and I went into the gully in search of pow.

I found it. I ripped my way down the gully and back to the Hot Wheels lift where we met Jodi for another lap on Hot Wheels.

We headed to the backside and took a few runs off Lakeview Chair. As the chair's name implies, it offers some of the best scenery the mountain has to offer. See above.

I had an awesome wipeout off of Sherwood Express. I was mach schnell down a groomer when I spotted some fresh powpow off to the side. I went into the powder field without slowing down. My skis started to grip the snow but I was not able to make any proper turns. When I came to a slight embankment, I knew it was trouble. My left ski dug into the snow and popped off. I kept going full speed ahead. Yardsale. It was fun though. Back at the bottom, Jodi knocked a huge clump of snow off my helmet, a dead-giveaway that an accident had occurred on my last run.

We hit the Alpine Bowl later that afternoon which showed evidence of avalanche debris in the form of huge snow boulders. Roundhouse provided the rest of the afternoons fun and we wound down around 4:00 PM after a full day of skiing.

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