Operational update: Mixed precipitation followed by powder

By Maddie Condon/Palisades Tahoe on December 27, 2024

The storm that hit Thursday dropped 12 inches of new snow on our upper mountain and 2 inches of snow at the base in 24 hours. However, the winds will play a large role in our ability to operate as this storm continues into Sunday. We will do our best to open our entire site as weather and conditions permit. As the weekend comes to an end and the weather clears up, there should be some sensational skiing and riding experiences as the new year begins.

Weather

Friday-Saturday: Scattered showers are expected, with freezing temperatures rising to 8,000-9,000 feet and wind gusts of 50-90 mph and above. Maximum temperatures range from 30°C at the mountain to nearly 40°F at the base, with rain and a layer of wet snow. Saturday morning we could see 2 inches of wet snow on the upper mountain.

Sunday: A stronger storm will arrive in the morning and will bring heavy rainfall. Snow levels are expected to drop from 7,500 feet to 5,000 feet by late afternoon, with 1 to 4 inches at the base, 4 to 8 inches at the middle of the mountain and 6 to 11 inches at the summit overnight. Wind gusts exceeding 100 mph will likely impact lifts in the upper mountain areas.

Monday – Thursday: High pressure area with mostly sunny days and high temperatures into the 30s and 40s as well as weaker winds. Monday could be a real bluebird powder day.

For more weather information, check out Open Snow’s Bryan Allegretto’s weather blog.

Operations

The strong winds that will continue throughout the weekend will pose an obstacle to the opening of our cable cars Our goal every day is to open our entire campus (with the current exception of Sherwood and Silverado).. To get the best idea of ​​what will be open the next day, we post our scheduled lift operations for the following day at 6:00 p.m. both on our website under Lift + Grooming Status and in the Palisades Tahoe app. If a lift is scheduled as an “AWI” (Anticipated Weather Impact), it is on schedule and we will attempt to perform it when weather and conditions permit.

Friday: We opened at Palisades Red dog, resort chair, Far East, ExhibitionAnd First venture. We opened at Alpine Treeline Cirque to the middle station, Roundhouse, Kangaroo, subway, meadow, yellow, and both those Large And Small carpets.

Saturday: Conditions appear to be more favorable for Saturday and it is more likely that our teams will be able to open the upper lifts at both Palisades and Alpine. We assume that the weather and conditions will allow opening Lake view For the first time this season. Storms from previous systems had winds of more than 100 miles per hour, blowing snow away from areas in Lakeview. Our mountain operations teams have been working to pull snow from the backside of Lakeview to where previous storms had moved it and patch the exposed areas to create a groomed, skiable surface.

Sunday: The forecast calls for the storm system to strengthen again with stronger winds and falling snow levels, which could impact lifts in the upper mountains.

Monday-Thursday: Monday should be an incredible day for skiing and riding, but due to the intensity of Sunday’s storm there may be a delay in opening. The rest of the week is expected to be clear and we will likely be able to have the majority of our site open daily.

Sherwood Update: While the Sherwood site still needs more snow, our grooming team has created snow banks that will hopefully capture more snow and allow us to ski this site sooner.

Mountain Surf Report

Park

We are currently in the holiday season where weekday parking reservations are required daily from December 27th to January 5th. Free parking reservations for the weekend of January 4th to 5th are available from December 31st. Free reservations are currently still possible. Reservations are required throughout the holiday season. There are other free ways to get to the mountain: the Mountaineer Shuttle, which offers free rides in Olympic Valley and Alpine Meadows, TART, and the free Park and Ride, which operates in both Truckee and Tahoe City with regular rides between 6:00 a.m. Available at 5:30 p.m. and 5:45 p.m