JMA Ventures : Alpine Meadows

I had an excellent day while we were at Alpine, in fact one of my better days of riding on the road-trip. Part of what made the day so good was the temp. It was around 40 degrees almost all day. This led to some fun slush runs and soft landings in the park. For the majority of the day, their terrain park was absolutely flawless, although by the end of the day it was getting slushy (hardly something to complain about considering that meant softer landings).

One run that stands out in my mind is right off the top of Summit Six, Alpine's six-person, high speed chair. Heading to the right and dropping into the Alpine Bowl leads you into a huge groomed and completely smooth run that drops away below you. Jeremy, Aaron and I raced down this several times. It was so wide, open, and smoothly groomed that we couldn't help but ride there time after time on the way to the park.

The park was incredible due to several factors. First, it had a lift that ran the length of the park. Very fun for doing park runs, but we preferred to go all the way up and catch the park at the end of a run. The staff at Alpine were out throughout the day cleaning up runways and making sure that the hits were up to par.

Alpine is a fairly large mountain just south of Squaw Valley. When the winds pick up and Squaw closes the upper mountain, Alpine is probably the better bet because it is more sheltered and usually has more lifts running.

 When we rode there Alpine had just won an award for doing the best job of keeping their terrain park maintained; fittingly, I really enjoyed their terrain park. It had a lift of its own, and numerous tabletops of all sizes. There were a few spines, some rollers, and a rail slide.