April 21, 2017 Alpine Meadows

We spent the night at the Squaw Valley Resort parking lot near the river. The security people arrived by truck and asked if we had a filled out a parking permit. Well, NO, but we received a sheet, filled it out, and put it on our dash area. We have parked in this lot for years and have never had to get a permit; now you need a permit, can only spend 3 consecutive nights (excluding Friday and Saturday nights), and can't park overnight on holidays or during storms. Change, the one constant in life! We awoke to a sunny, blue sky day with no clouds. It started in the mid 30's and quickly became much warmer -- a “goggle suntan” day.

We used our Mountain Collective passes and started the day with a smile. The first stop was the backside which receives the morning sun on the Sherwood lift. It's almost illegal to have such perfect spring snow. Jill had this enormous smile on her face on each run. We met a local woman with a ”No Gondola” sticker on her skis. Jill asked about it, and it was referring to the proposed gondola between Squaw and Alpine Meadows. Not a popular plan with most of the long-term locals. There is a definite difference between the Alpine Meadows crowd and the Squaw Valley crowd! And although Squaw bought Alpine, the locals still don't ski at Squaw.

The way we get photos of us together is that Jill sees a family trying to get their picture by Dad. Then Jill comes over and asks to take their picture in return for their taking a picture of us. Not bad!

Today we just had a blast with the creamy, spring snow. In past years we've had passes here, but those days are gone (probably)...