Something New

The end of the week was clear and cold and the guns blew all night to prepare the Supertrail and World Cup for opening on the weekend.

Contrary to the early morning web site announcement that lifts would start at 9:00am, punters were riding Snowgums chair before 8:30am. It was a slow and interrupted ride to the top where the only skiing was on a thin cover of very hard man made snow. A good job was done to get the top to bottom Supertrail (below Eagle Way) open for riding. The cover has hard (yes I know I already said that - it was worth saying again) and there were a lot of death cookies on the lower slope. The top of World Cup was the best of it and after two runs I knew I would enjoy being out behind the resort more than being in it. I didn't ski on High Noon or Merritts but I'm sure the cover was much better than on Supertrail.

Kosi chair is still not open for skiing and boarding. Eagle Way has only a thin cover and above the top of Snowgums chair there is no snowmaking. May be next year. The Cat Walk looks good but there still remains no ski access between Supertrail and High Noon in either direction. As head patroller Davo said, "We need some more natural snow".

Out back was an interesting mix of grass, thin breakable cover on shrubbery and hard packed wind drifts with what looked like a hoar frost coating. I had my first fall for season 2009 after snagging a ski on a rock returning from Signature Hill. I'll cut off the PTex dags tomorrow.

High cloud moved in late on Saturday ending our week of clear blue skies. Sunday revealed that moisture had fallen overnight but it wasn't snow. After 36 hours of above zero temperatures, the hard packed had been softened somewhat. I didn't bother pulling on the ski boots but instead enjoyed a Sunday sleep in.

Early morning snow making on Friday

Top of Snowgums Saturday

Milk Run mid morning Saturday

Supertrail below Bunny Walk

World Cup

The Bluff

Lynne at the top of Signature Hill

Looking west of Signature Hill

Ray skiing Signature Hill

That standard photo from the bridge
note how full the creek is - with snow

TraKtorman was probably wise not to venture down from Canberra for the weekend, there will be better and hopefully (despite bureau forecasts) that will be next weekend after some fresh snow later in the week. (The Frog told me so).

Something New - that is the heading up top and I’m not talking about the Supertrail. I'm going to trial placing much more frequent information from Thredbo (or where ever I may find myself) on Twitter. If it generates enough of a following I will continue. You can access the twit at http://twitter.com/richardsreport.

Anti Grump: We had fireworks on Saturday night and the first flare run. Well done all.

More good news: the days will be getting longer after tomorrow.