How Fast It Changes

No doubt you saw the 2 reports I posted last Thursday. Things have moved on from that memorable day. From first chair on Friday morning the off piste was looking amazing. We had visibility and The Bluff was smooth with all tracks from the previous day covered.

Peter, Sophie and I dived into The Bluff. The first three turns were nice THEN we hit breakable crust. A crust that when broken had my skis dropping 10-15cms into the soft below. Oh, horrors of horrors. Big fast GS survival turns were soon replaced with short exhausting jump turns as the situation became worse the lower I dropped. Having eventually traversed out below Kareela Hutte I found myself on World Cup - ungroomed and covered in frozen deep tracks left over from the day before. I kept up the jump turns until I reached a gap in the snow fence and retreated back to a groomed Supertrail. It took a while on groomers before I worked up the confidence to tackle the smooth off piste on the Rim Run. This was better but still breakable for the last couple of turns.

Saturday arrived. The weather was cold and OK, but where were the crowds that usually follow a fresh dump? Heidi jammed the turnstile and I ended up on first chair again. It was quite funny to watch my fellow riders ignore The Bluff and head straight for the Supertrail, which was nice. Narrowing towards the bottom but nice. Sponars early-up was my favourite with 1cm of soft on firm.

Looking at the weather radar this morning I thought I might get 2 runs before the rain. I did and as I rode up top for a third the rain started with snow falling above Kareela. My ride home was on a quickly slowing soft base. Pretty good timing I thought.

Much of Thursday's snow, that fell on grass and rock, has already melted. That's Spring for you.

Friday - remains of the tracks made the day before - gone today

Lower Supertrail is finished (Milk Run holding up well)

Supertrail looking great on Friday

Left overs of tracks towards Tower 10

The World Cup onsen

Meadows Grass Measuring Point on Friday and again on Saturday morning

And Meadows Grass Measuring Point this morning - pretty well tells the story

And this sums it up well - pulling up the Closed signs

Sundance and High Noon today

It feels cold outside. Hopefully the snow level will drop.

A huge CONGRATULATIONS to locals X and Y who secretly got married yesterday in Jindabyne!

Just 2 more weekends left ... and then it's all over but I'm sure there's still some good news to come before then.