Snow, Wax, Ice, Baseballs, Sugar, Slop and Crust

Firstly, I forgot in my last report to mention what a great night we all had on Friday celebrating Tommy Tomasi’s 80th birthday and viewing an extraordinary film about his life, put together by Rebel Penfold Russell.

It snowed on and off most of Monday with a lot of cloud mist and saturation. Not feeling well I decided to stay away from the slopes.

The Tuesday snow report claimed 15cm of fresh while I found around 10cm up top and 5cm on the middle slopes. It was however enough to cover the rocks. It was wet heavy base building snow, lots of work for the legs and downright sticky from below mid station to the bottom. I had, along with many others, parted with $10 to get Ronnie to hot wax the now sintered base of my rock hoppers. It helped. It helped a lot while I watched skiers and boarders fly past me in cartwheel fashion after they had become stuck and then unstuck. I only stayed out for 3 runs. The new snow was trashed after the first run and by run number 3 the new snow was piling up in big piles on the upper slopes. Visibility was not good and I made a terrible mistake in not taking out my waterproof gloves. Still it was better than most days over the past week and a half.

The Tuesday forecast had been for snow down to 1300m and rising during the day but the actuality was reversed with drizzle up to Kareela in the morning and then big flakes falling in the village later in the day.

Wednesday morning, the sky was clear, the air cool and only a slight breeze – sounds great, so what went wrong? The resort has three kinds of surface: Frozen rutted off piste - not much fun, boiler plated upper groomed runs – fast and good for balance but otherwise horrid and then there was the groomed runs with a layer of baseballs on top – easier to ski than the other two. So four of us headed for Dead Horse Gap. We climbed up behind Karels and found a firm base but not icy. Upon hitting tree line we had breakable crust. I think the frozen baseballs were better. The crust varied as did our attempts at levitation and the last descent to the bridge could, at best, be described as “very technical”. Where’s that 1-2m dump?

Now it’s Thursday and I went out late, not by choice but certainly well timed. It was a typical spring day - frozen overnight, sunny day with sugar on top. Bottom of Supertrail and High Noon are still in very good condition. Sundowner is looking poor at the top. The off piste is a maze of frozen ruts not softening in the midday sun. Best quality snow was the upper half of the one groomer of Antons and the Ridge Traverse from Basin to Conrod Straight. Valley View is still OK whilst the bottom of the Basin and most of Eagle Way are not. The Village Trail and Cat Walk and better than earlier in the week when there were bare patches on both.

Monday afternoon snowfall

Tuesday morning and then afternoon snowfall

Milk Run Wednesday

Supertrail below Bunny Walk

Trip to Dead Horse Gap

Eagle Way, Race Course, Sundowner, High Noon

Valley View, Antons, Crackenback Traverse, Cat Walk

Best snow on upper Antons

World Cup above mid station. Conrod Straight & Ridge Traverse

Happy Birthday hat, T's on Sponars

The good news, apart from the great weather is that today the T’s were being put onto Sponars T-bar. The T-bar line has been filled and groomed. I suspect we will see Sponars open tomorrow or Saturday.

Annie’s in town over the weekend so we can expect snow. The bureau is pushing for showers and snow while I’m still waiting for that 1-2m dump.

Happy 50th birthday Peter!

Don't forget the campaign to return Kosciuszko Park entry fees back to something reasonable - click here