Quietest Week

This week has been very uncrowded compared to the previous weeks. We have seen The Basin T-bar open and work has begun on Karels T-bar. Merritts chair has been offline for 3 days after an indiscretion. It has started up again as I write this report, with no help from some moron(s) who last night stole a chair that had been detached for the resplicing of the cable. You really wonder about how low the human gene pool has sunk. Yes it is Uni-Week!

This morning’s snow was spectacular. I don’t think I have ever had such great quality man-made snow before. There was soft, dry and deep corduroy for the first few runs although Eagle Way didn’t hold up for long.

Yesterday Marion and I did a reconnaissance run to Dead Horse Gap to assess the suitability of skiing to DHG for the Veuve/Denman "Clicquot in the Snow" picnic. Without Karels operating, the thought of getting paying patronage to climb pretty well put a dampener on the concept but we skinned up and around Karels nonetheless. The upper areas above tree line were very pleasant - a firm base with a couple of cms of soft dry snow on top. However, once we descended into the tree line, the snow had not been compacted by last week’s wind and was deep and heavy. There were a few tracks from previous adventurers and their deep, narrow railway tracks had frozen into a bumpy speed track good for crossing the flatter sections but nasty in the trees. The alternative was having your ski go down knee-deep into the snow-covered shrubbery. The further we descended the worse it got until the final descent, where it was a case of step turn - traverse over the bouncing bushes - step turn and repeat as necessary. We did technically “ski” to the bridge but it was very hard work and not recommended to anyone. I won’t go back until there has been more snow and wind.

Work in the Basin on Tuesday

Unscheduled work on Merritts chair - Tuesday evening
I've seen this in Hirafu

The Media crew got first taste of the Basin opening on Wednesday
while Ski Patrol got the cream

And we got the queue

Out of the resort was much better

Signature Hill

Upper slopes above Bogong were sweet

Below tree line looked better than it was
but we had more of that blue sky

Bottom of DHG run - gnarly

Bottom of The Basin today
note the non-blue sky

There is little in the forecasts but it is interesting to see Weatherzone predicting snow in a different week to the Frog. With luck both will be right and we will get something decent.

Grump: Well this week’s grump has got to be about those who stole the Merritts chair and are disrupting the resort operation for all. Mindless idiots !