Still no snow in sight. About the only opportunity for some fun skiing is working the berm on the edge of the groomers.

I took Ryder all the way down to the creek. There’s barely any snow on the trail, mostly just icy sections.

The highs have been in the mid-50s and still no snow in the forecast.

We decided to have a funky, funky Christmas and ski all the non-beginner lifts at three different areas in one day. We went to Northstar first, then got in our first day at Alpine Meadows.

Alpine had about four groomed runs open, and a lot of rocky bumps off the groomers. Here I am forgetting that I’m not telemarking and trying to drop a knee anyway.

We finished up at Squaw, which is suffering due to its meager snowmaking. The only lift open on the upper mountain is Gold Coast, with just one run.

The lower mountain is also in sad shape, with Red Dog and Squaw Creek both scraped down to rock-studded formica.

We rode each lift and then fled for home to open our extremely pragmatic Christmas gifts (Dutch oven, waffle iron, impact wrench, etc.).

Another backlit shot of man-made snow on the handful of groomers that are open.

It looks like no snow through the end of 2013, so the ski areas are looking at a very unprofitable holiday period. The forecast is cautiously optimistic for January.

Skiing down the East Ridge, looking at a mostly bare Martis Valley and a mostly frozen Martis Lake.

The Loggers Loop run has opened, another option off of Vista.

Northstar has curtailed the snowmaking compared to two years ago; I think the dry years have reduced the water available for snowmaking.

The only run open on Lookout is Washoe. They’re blowing snow on Martis to try to open a second run to relieve the congestion.

We came out on our day off—apparently we have nothing better to do than scrape around for a few hours. Cold temps persist.

Lookout finally opened, with just one run (Washoe) open, covered with icy pellets from the artificial snow. Still, it’s something.

Our last day of skiing with Chingus on his mini-vacation. We managed to ski about 28,000 vertical feet, which is impressive considering how little there is to ski.

Taking a break in the Zephyr Lodge.

Making the most of the dryness—another day of man-made glisse. Still no Lookout, just cruising the same groomers ad infinitum.

Well, at least they look excited.

Mark (“Chingus”) made his first appearance of the year, so we came out to keep him company.

Backside opened yesterday with Burnout as the only run open. Nancy skied it yesterday and said it was terrible—all man-made ice chunked up by the groomers.

It was much better today, with some fun bumps forming on the right edge of the groomer.

Well, at least it looks like winter.

We got a foot or snow of dry snow on top of our one inch base. It would have been a great powder day if there was anything but rocks underneath it.

Nancy is faking it here for the camera, getting one turn off the side of the groomer and hoping she doesn’t hit anything.

I tried skiing some knee-deep snow off the East Ridge, but despite the cold temps the snow was still too heavy and the pitch not steep enough to do anything but try not to get stuck while sitting WAY back to stay on top of the logs and rocks.

It would have been so much better if it had been a wet storm that caked everything. As it is, this storm won’t open up any new runs.

You have to get creative when there’s no snow, like skiing under snow guns and pretending it’s powder.

We have a cold snap in place with lots of negative temps, getting into the negative teens. It’s keeping what snow we have nice and dry and letting the snowmaking run around the clock.

We got a few inches of cold snow overnight, just enough to take some of the sting out of the scaped-off man-made groomers.

We only got out for a little bit. Nancy broke out the teles on Pinball, which doesn’t have any park features yet.

The skiing is too boring to take pictures of, so here we are downloading the gondola due to no snow on Village Run.