Alpine Meadows

Saturday 18 January 1992

Weather

Started cold, but warmed up significantly during the day. High winds (up to 60mph) made conditions unpleasant at the summit.

Conditions

Good snow conditions.

The Story of the Day

This was the start of two weekends of skiing around the UniForum trade show in San Francisco. For the first weekend, I was joined by Roy McKean; for the second by a much larger group including Chris and Jenny who flew to San Francisco to join me.

Alpine Meadows was very crowded with up to 30 minutes wait from late morning. This was not helped by the Summit Chair being on wind hold for much of the day and a breakdown on Subway chair.

Overall it was a good day's skiing. After a couple of gentle warm up runs, Roy and I took the resort guided tour in the morning. From the top of the roundhouse chair, the leader immediately headed into the trees rather than down any of the marked runs. I struggled a lot with one particular steep narrow track down, almost under the chair. The moguls were just about OK.

Later, Roy and I ventured to the Summit and down through Wolverine Bowl and The Face. The bowl was OK, although we did cross too far across and found an area that was rather steeper than we planned. The Face was another matter, steep and heavily mogulled. We decided that discretion is the better part of valour and side slipped down and across until we were in a position to escape.

We finished with a trip to Bobby's run. I remember being terrified by it the first time I encountered it and wondered whether I would find it to be pretty tame. It was still steep, but conditions were getting rather slushy.

Easy Runs

Meadow - Good condition
Tiegel - Good condition

Intermediate Runs

Bobby's Run - Steep, reasonable condition, snow getting slushy
Weasel Run - Good condition am, some slick areas later in the day
Ladies Slalom (*) - Generally good, some slick areas, moguls at the top and sides
Red Trail - Groomed, good condition
Rock Garden - Moguls, but soft
Blue Trail - Large slick area at the top, interesting moguls and gulleys on the left
Alpine Bowl (*) - Not groomed, upgraded to "experts only", snow cover thin in places, with rocks and grass showing. Mogulled, quite large and hard in places
Kangaroo - Good condition, but narrow because of races on both sides

Advanced Runs

Sympathy Face (*) - Powder track through trees. Struggled.
The Face (*) - Steep, mogulled with rocks at the top. Had to side-slip down and across.
Wolverine Bowl (*) - Very wide with good cover, except in a few places. Mogulled. Two long traverses led to a place that was skiable.

Last updated: 22nd January 2001