The parking lot pulsed with bass-heavy playlists and breakfast cocktails. Ski boots clicked alongside trail runners; bikes leaned against tailgates next to rock skis. Spring in the Northwest is less about conditions and more about community-and the stoke was high.
Kirkwood has had a pretty solid past few days, seeing 42 inches of snow through the past 7 days, 31 of which fell in the past 48 hours. As of April 13th, Kirkwood has 5 lifts spinning with 45 of 84 trails open to skiers and snowboarders.
Both days delivered clear skies and cold temperatures, with hardly a cloud overhead and almost no wind. Despite the strong alpine sun, temperatures remained below freezing, keeping the snow in excellent shape across the mountain.
Head finished the season with 9,720 points across all disciplines, leading in Downhill, Super-G, and Slalom, while placing third in Giant Slalom. This consistency ensured a comfortable overall victory, nearly 4,000 points ahead of the next-best ski brand.
Camelback Mountain has achieved a historic milestone by remaining open for skiing and snowboarding until May, marking the longest operational season in its 62-year history.
Standing among the Alps, it's easy to believe that they will last forever. They seem too big to fail, too old to change. This illusion of permanence has long entranced travelers who have visited to experience the intoxicating feeling of being daunted and dwarfed by a landscape's authority. But even mountains move: This past May an avalanche of ice and rock tore through the Lötschental Valley, erasing the village of Blatten in less than a minute.
On the approach to Arosa in the Graubunden Alps, the road is lined with mountain chapels, their stark spires soaring heavenwards; a portent, perhaps, of the ominous route ahead. The sheer-sided valley is skirted with rugged farmhouses and the road twists, over ravines and round hairpin curves, to a holiday destination that feels like a well-kept secret. On the village's frozen lake, young families ice skate, hand in hand.
Switzerland's men have dominated the ski slopes of Milano Cortina. Not since the super-G and the team combined were added to the Olympic programme in 1988 has one country won four of the five events a feat achieved with Loic Meillard's victory in the slalom on Monday. Only Brazil managed to stop them in these Games. Franjo von Allmen has been their undisputed star, heading home with three golds in his hand luggage.
Italy's finest ski resorts are often overshadowed by their French and Swiss equivalents. Pity really, as their piste-side rifugi lunches are a divine alchemy of Mediterranean and Alpine cuisine, their hotels, chalets, sunny terrace lunches and ski passes sit at a more civilised price point than the wildly expensive Swiss and French resorts, and their well-connected ski areas wiggle across great swathes of map.
From Sunday afternoon through early Tuesday, guidance converges on timing but diverges on intensity, so confidence is highest in a light event rather than a strong storm. Snow should be most persistent Sunday evening into Monday night, then taper Tuesday morning. The conservative near-term expectation is light accumulation for many resorts, with localized higher-terrain totals near 7 cm in the western and southern Alps.