16″ of April Powder @ Squaw Valley & Alpine Meadows Today | Photo Tour:

At 7:30am today, Squaw Valley was reporting 7″ of new snow (they’re reporting 16″ at 4pm) and a temperature of 24F.  Around the same time they announced that they weren’t going to open the Funitel until 10:30am, Gold Coast and Shirley would open at 11am, and Granite and Siberia at 12:00pm.

At 7:30am today, Alpine Meadows was reporting 8″ of new snow (they’re reporting 17″ at 4pm) and a temperature of 25F.  Around the same time they announced that they weren’t going to open the Summit chair until 9:45am.

Both resorts also announced that they’d stay open until 4pm instead of closing at 2pm as they’ve been doing this spring.  Squaw and Alpine just announced that they’ll be open from 9am – 3:30pm Saturday and Sunday.  They also announced that Alpine will be open Fri, Sat, Sun until May 11th.  Squaw will still close this sunday for the season.

We decided to start the day at Alpine, then head to Squaw.

Alpine opened at 10am and the first run was dreamy.  About a foot of fresh snow in most spots with no bottom.  There was a line when they opened at 10am then no line at all.  Maybe 150 people at Alpine today.  Most people we talked to thought Alpine was closed today.

After 4 runs at Alpine we headed to Squaw for the Granite opening at noon.  By the time we got to Granite at 11:30am it had already opened at 11am.  It was good.  It was deep (about a foot, same as Alpine).  It was fun.  There was no one out.

People were flipping and spinning like crazy off “Fat Lip” (lookers right if you’re on the chair not too far below Glory Rock).  Glory Rock is enormous right now and unhuckable.  Triple Goat was absolute undoable with boulders in the landings, but the zone was great to ski.  Corkscrew was closed.  Just skiers right of Corkscrew was great.  Oh, and boys were doing lots of McConkey style rock sliding (see below).

Unfortunately, someone hucked a 20-footer in the ledgy area skiers right of the chair and broke his femoral head off.  When that happened (there were some other injuries in Granite to add to it) patrol closed the chair for the day.  We hope he’s doing ok.

After Granite closed we did laps off Shirley into Rock Pile in the Granite zone and it was great and was filling in each run.  Siberia had unreal snow, but you couldn’t see anything.  Still was great tho and my friend Sara told me before we dropped in:

“Vision is overrated”

That helped.

We also skied under the Chimney and Palisades to check ’em out for tomorrow (if they open).  The Tube and Extra Chute were looking F-I-N-E fine.  The chimney looked bony and scary, but maybe the sweep is doable…  maybe Center Line?

It snowed moderately all day at both Alpine and Squaw today and there’s a Winter Weather Advisory in effect until 11pm tonight.  

The roads are slick.  Be careful.  Highway 80 was closed in both directions for about an hour this morning.

Tomorrow is going to be great.