Well Groomed

What a week! The best so far this season with a great base of good dry snow all week. The Thredbo Memorial Cup race was held on Thursday to a great turn out of 50+ teams.

Saturday was a flash back to the previous Sunday – foul weather and great snow. We skied top to bottom Crackenback (in very limited visibility) in virtually untouched soft snow for 3 hours with our Master’s instructor – Meech (congrats on your engagement).

Apart from Lucky Phil, none of us had dry or warm hands by lunchtime but we persevered with untracked powder skiing in the trees till almost lift closing time. It was still snowing at the end of the day and lightly into the evening.

Sunday the weather let up a little but not completely and we found fantastic wind drifts all over the upper slopes topped by further falls during the day. One line off Crackenback we did six times in the morning and it was untracked each time till almost half way done the mountain due to constant refreshing by the wind.

We spent the afternoon back in the trees retracing some of the great adventures we had on Saturday afternoon.

The snow base is the deepest it has been all season and suddenly we found lines we haven’t skied for many years beckoning us into tighter and tighter places. The Schuss was officially open, as were the runs around Pegasus down to the Gunbarrel chair line above Dream Run.

Today (Monday) the groomers had a field day. Funnel Web was groomed from below the ‘S’ bend to the bottom on both exits. They had groomed to the top under the Kosciuszko Chair as well as many other rarely groomed locations. Unfortunately for me the only groomed I got was run outs from all the powder stashes around the Bluff, Cannonball, Karels, Golf Course and the like. But it was fun being able to do big GS turns down the groomed lower Funnel Web after emerging from the trees.

There was reportedly 10cms overnight but it was only up top. The wind blown was glorious. With clear blue skies this morning I could have stayed out all day but alas had other things I had to do. The small crowds, great weather and great snow had the locals out in force. For those no wanting off piste action the groomers were superb and they felt like those soft North American groomers.

Cassie sets off on the Memorial course

Wayne on his winning run (a split time of 0.00 seconds shared with Suzie)

Wonderful soft groomers

First tracks down Cannonball

A few early tracks on Karels

Lower Funnel Web not just open but groomed

Kerry in Golf Course bowl

With little breeze and strong sun the temp in the village was very warm. Although the village is covered in snow it may not last all that long. Some light cloud is now appearing but I expect the week will remain fine until the next front – forecast for Friday. This is the best start to spring skiing and boarding I can remember in a long time.