Missed That One

Well, the promised third dump of the season didn't happen. Instead temperatures hovering around zero and winds from the south east have brought moist conditions ranging from a little wet snow to light rain and mizzle on goggles. Anyway you look at it, the conditions haven't been conducive to improving the snow pack.

Yesterday (with a call of 20cm of fresh) was a shocker. I couldn't see more than 10cm of fresh at best, during my single run from Eagles Nest. The off piste was super-slow, elephant snot but where someone had left track in the new snow it was "fast". Topped off with a head wind and rain it made for really miserable, if not dangerous, conditions. I was home and dry before 9am.

It has been several days since groomers went past Ski-In Ski-Out corner. The base is thin and wet and the mountain bike trails are showing though in several places.

It could be school holidays or more likely the inter-school races that brings on unpleasant weather conditions. There definitely seems to have been a pattern over the decades.

Lifts opened early today. I don't know why. May be something to do with inter-schools?

Tuesday: as the snow builds in the trees and covers the roof tops in the village
It looked so promising

Today - Thursday - Lower Sundance and High Noon in the background

Close-up of High Noon - photo taken at 8:24am after early lift opening

Upper Supertrail also taken at 8:24am

I keep telling myself it can only get better. The forecasters all seemed to misread this latest weather pattern. A dart board may prove more accurate but I'll keep looking at the forecasts and graphs.

We still haven't seen Lower World Cup, True Blue or Little Beauty get their first grooming for the season. When you see on the Thredbo web site that "World Cup" is groomed, they currently mean "Upper World Cup" (only as far as mid station). For some reason they no longer have separate listings for Upper and Lower World Cup on their "Trail Status" web page.

Now we await next Tuesday's "forecast" snow falls.

It's almost 9am, so I'd better get back to work and make the most of the day off.