Kerry Delivered

Despite what the forecasters were predicting over the past few days, I awoke this morning to snow covered tree tops and roof tops. Although usually a lot more than today's 3ms, fresh snow fell within 2 days of Kerry's birthday - as it always has.

Upon reaching the top of Kosi chair this morning I was surprised to see wind drifts on Eagle Way blown in from the North East. How weird is that? May be more of that global warming ;-)

My first run was my best. Untracked 2-3cms of creamy freshies down Supertrail. Second run was great as I did big GS turns on the untracked freshies down an earlier groomed Little Beauty - until - upon reaching the steeper section the snow got sticky. Across the flats past Tower 10 it got even stickier. Third run was back down Supertrail - not as good as the first run but certainly better than my second run.

After coffee I lasted for a few runs in The Basin where sticky was not the problem but visibility was. Precipitation has continued to fall lightly all day. With the temperature up top remaining sub zero I suspect it kept snowing up there but when I left the slopes the precip in the village was no longer white :-(

Believe it or not, we have been looking forward to a change from the weeks of persistent sunshine. Partly to top up the slopes but mainly to soften the off piste.

Speaking of off piste - Funnel Web was groomed again yesterday for the second time this year - truly a rare event. The grooming was understandably better the second time around but the snow pack was also firmer. Still, I had 3 enjoyable runs before navigating between groups of small children and having large bodies pass me at considerably faster speeds than I was travelling made the whole experience less than safe.

On Friday we had a new event in Thredbo: The Thredbo Boost Mobile Series - Banzai event was held off piste from the top of The Bluff to the top of Little Beauty. Open to skiers and boarders the hard packed conditions and tricky gates provided a very difficult course for the boarders. The event was thrilling to watch but dragged on a bit between practice and actual racing.

Then on Saturday we had another new event: The Transfer Banked Slalom. This was a boarder's only event with banked turns starting off Conrod Straight and finishing just below the natural half pipe on Merritts Falls. Again I found the practice sessions very entertaining, as my photos below will show.

Top of the Banzai course on Friday
Competitors leaped from the Bluff

The first few gates were on almost polished steel plate

Not your average groomed race course at all

Further down the course the gates were very technical

Air was easy, making all the gates was somewhat more difficult

For those who completed the course, the finish was groomed with one last jump

Saturday: The Banked Slalom started from near the top of Conrod Straight
The course ran from top left to bottom right of top photo

There was a big crowd to capture every mistake

Randy had competitors dropping at his feet on the first banked turn

There was action galore at the top of the course during practice

When I came back in this morning it was still snowing up top but I'd hardly call it snow in the village. More snow is forecast for the next couple of days :-)

On a sad note, reports are that all 4 of the brumbies that had camped along the route to Dead Horse Gap have been sighted dead. It appears they starved to death. I don't understand why NPWS didn't deal with them once they started to seriously deteriorate. It would have been the humane thing to do.

Whilst in grumpy mode, here is my latest instalment on WikiGrumps about the body corporate at Squatters Run: wikigrumps/4579700901_2014080808/