Alpine Meadows Starts Testing Life After the Howitzer

Alpine Meadows Ski Patrol uses about 360 hand charges on a typical storm day, plus 30 rounds through the howitzer. That's how Alpine mountain manager Jeff Goldstone described the routine to SnowBrains in May. Those numbers come from Pacific storms that drop a lot of heavy, wet snow, often in weather Goldstone called "very, very tough conditions to be able to operate avalanche control programs in."

This winter the list of tools gets longer. Over the summer, Palisades Tahoe installed five Wyssen avalanche towers on the Alpine side, as part of what Moonshine Ink reported as a $3.2 million investment in remote avalanche control across both mountains. The rest of that money went to the Palisades side: six new Gazex and Gazflex exploders and a new CATEX cable system in The Funnel.

People who live along Alpine Meadows Road know storm mornings by their sounds and their waits. What changes now is the toolkit behind them. The new towers are the first concrete step in the long effort Goldstone describes as "moving us towards getting rid of our reliance upon military weapon systems." The resort is treating this season as a test of whether that step works in Alpine's wind, not as a finished replacement.

Where the towers went up

Palisades' own season announcement says only "five Wyssen avalanche towers at Alpine." The paperwork is more specific for two of them. A Notice of Exemption filed by the California Tahoe Conservancy covers two towers on Conservancy-owned land inside the Alpine Meadows lease area, "known as Sherwood Bowl." The filing lists the whole project footprint at 50 square feet. It names Palisades Tahoe Resort, LLC as the party doing the work and classifies the job as a Class 3 categorical exemption, since it "involves minor drilling into rock and other new construction activities." The state's CEQAnet database shows it received and posted on October 20, 2026.

For the other three, the best public clues come from the longtime fan site UnofficialAlpine, which surveyed the mountain by bike in early October. Its post shows two towers above "the Idiots zone above Wolverine bowl." Taken from the parking lot, its photo seems to show another at the top of Lower Saddle, though the writer adds "i think." The writer's guesses for the rest are South Beaver Bowl and Estelle Bowl. The reasoning is that towers belong in terrain "where you cannot drive a cat or snowmobile." Those are guesses, and the resort hasn't published a map.

The same post adds some off-season context. Alpine closed early last spring with a thin snowpack, so summer crews had extra time on the mountain. The trail crew spent much of it clearing dead trees in the Lakeview area, so the glades there may be easier to get through this season.

Four ways to start an avalanche on purpose

The Wyssen towers make more sense next to the tools Alpine already uses. Each one gets an explosion to a starting zone in a different way, with a different tradeoff.

The howitzer's main advantage is that it works in any weather. SnowBrains notes that no matter how hard the wind blows or how fast snow piles up, artillery can still reach starting zones before the hazard grows too large. When patrollers then head out on their routes, many of the biggest paths have already been at least partly treated.

Alpine's Gazex units show how hard it is to match that in the Sierra. Sources count them differently. SnowBrains reported "more than a dozen Gazex tubes" at Alpine. UnofficialAlpine says the system went in about eight years ago and puts the number at eight units "around the ski area and along Alpine Meadows Road." Either way, Gazex replaced only a few artillery shots and hand-charging routes.

Wyssen's product documentation explains the mechanics. A coded command from its WAC.3 control system tells a deployment box to drop a single charge. The igniters pull as it falls, and the charge goes off after a delay while hanging about 2 to 3 meters above the snow. SnowBrains cites a Montana State University study finding that Wyssen towers produce larger blasts than Gazex tubes. That means one charge can reach more trigger points in a starting zone.

Why patrol calls this a learning season

Wind is the main open question. In May, Goldstone told SnowBrains: "You'd think somewhere else in the world, somebody would be in our situation in California, but there's not really that much of that. With our extreme winds and rime that will fully encompass one of these devices, we're still unsure about what the right tool is to be able to accomplish these ridge-line shots."

He also described how the rollout would work. The first installations would go in more sheltered spots so patrol could learn how Wyssen towers behave compared with Gazex. Each season of use would then help decide where the next tower goes. SnowBrains was direct that the first few remote installations "may not replace artillery shots in the near future." SnowBrains also reported then that California allowed only gas-based remote systems, and that Alpine was working with the state on approval for explosive ones. Five towers now stand on the mountain, and the Sherwood Bowl exemption was posted in October.

Reloading is the other practical question. Wyssen's larger LS12-5 and LS24-5 boxes hold 12 or 24 charges and come off the tower by helicopter for reloading. Judging from photos, UnofficialAlpine thinks Alpine's towers are a smaller six-charge version that a patroller climbs to reload. It points out that ridge winds during big storm cycles often run 50 to 100 mph. That's the writer's read of the hardware, and Palisades hasn't confirmed which model is installed.

Palisades frames the towers as a supplement. Its announcement says the systems can run during heavy snowfall, strong winds and limited visibility, and that the technology "doesn't replace the expertise and decision-making of Patrol, but gives our teams more tools to work with." Palisades president and COO Amy Ohran told Moonshine Ink that "storm mornings require an incredible amount of work before the mountain can open," and that the systems let teams do that work "more efficiently while reducing the amount of time employees need to spend traveling through avalanche terrain."

What other mountains got out of the same towers

Wyssen towers are already in use at several resorts in Utah's Wasatch, and that record sets fair expectations for Alpine. Snowbird put four towers in Mineral Basin in 2021 and five more in 2022. Wyssen's Snowbird case study says the slopes opened sooner, though it gives no figure for how much sooner. Alta installed four towers in East Castle in 2021 and later added five on Mount Baldy. Wyssen says they cut avalanche-control time and can mean faster openings, again without a figure. Solitude added towers on Fantasy Ridge in summer 2025. POWDER's coverage describes safer, more efficient mitigation and gives no measured change in opening times.

None of those resorts has published how many minutes the towers save, and Palisades hasn't promised any time savings at Alpine. The realistic expectation for this winter is that Wolverine and Sherwood get a new tool, patrol learns how it handles rime and wind, and the howitzer stays in service.

Before the first storm cycle

The Alpine side's season starts with the rest of the resort. Palisades has set opening day for Wednesday, November 25, 2026, weather and conditions permitting, and says it will announce opening-day lifts and terrain closer to the date. Parking rules for 2026-27, per the resort's parking program page:

• Weekdays: Parking at both Palisades and Alpine is free and needs no reservation Monday through Friday, outside holiday periods.
• Weekends and select holidays: Reservations are required for resort lots, including Alpine. Most are free, and paid advance spaces cost $30.
• New platform: The reservation system has been upgraded, so even returning users need to create a new account.
• Seasonal preferred parking: Sold for Palisades only. Alpine has none.

Parts of the FAQ further down that page still list release dates that look like last season's, so check the live booking portal for exact reservation timing.

At Ascension Real Estate, we follow what happens on the mountain above Alpine Meadows Road as closely as we follow the market below it. If you own on the Alpine side and want to talk about how a winter like this one fits into your plans for your property, we're glad to start that conversation. Live the Tahoe Life.