The First Big Wind

Once again the weekend brought much needed snowfalls. School holidays, races, no new snow and the inability to make snow left some really brown patches on the middle and lower slopes by Friday. Strong wind and snow began on Friday night and continued through Saturday and Saturday night. Conditions on Saturday got so bad that all upper lifts were closed down due to either the wind or lack of visibility.

Sunday arrived with slightly clearer skies and much better visibility not to mention 10cm of light dry powder that was severely augmented by a vast quantity of wind blown. With possibly the biggest accommodation turnover of the season (rumoured to be 85% of the village population) there were not a lot of people on the mountain to savour the fresh snow. The wind, although lower than the 100kph+ of the previous 24 hours was still in the 40-50kph range and the wind blown areas continued to improve all day.

With the air temperature around –6C and a wind-chill of –26C, the new snow was the driest of the season thus far. Deep stashes could be found off the Bluff, Funnel Web, Golf Course, Sponars, Antons and more. The wind blown is now seriously filling in the gaps and deepening the base all over.

Peter tackles 'Balls To The Wall'

Big crowd in the ‘S’ bend of Funnel Web – Friday

The run out from Funnel Web was thinning badly before the new snow

All guns blazing – mid Supertrail – Sunday morning

Getting some airtime

Richard with deep dry pow

Sally getting her share as well

Guns still blowing on High Noon – Sunday afternoon

Upper Supertrail also getting a man made top-up

The weather has allowed the snow makers to fire up everything in their arsenal and the guns have been running 24 hours around the clock. The resort is unrecognisable compared to how it was on Friday. School holidays are over and the snow is great.