A Break In The Weather

Unfortunately since the start of the season the weather has been pretty well downhill. After some very foggy nights we finally had a little snow making as Thursday cleared to a beautiful blue sky day.

This was then replaced with grey skies and snow flurries today - Friday.

Marion and I took advantage of the pleasant conditions on Thursday and headed out of the resort for a little touring. Conditions in the resort were not good. Thin snow base, too thin to groom, and a snap freeze that set it up horribly.

Out back the snow was also very firm, even on Signature Hill. The difference to in-resort and out-of-resort was that there were no tracks and no ruts resulting in a smooth sparkly base. Moving around was not easy as the firm base resisted edges. As small shards of ice broke away under ski there was the sound of breaking glass. The good point about the firm base was that creek crossings were easy and downhill runs were fast albeit noisy. It was so firm that we didn't leave any tracks.

The Basin on Thursday

Looking towards Summer Drift

An icy top to the Basin T-bar

Ice balls on a very firm base

Sparkly and as firm as glass

Climbing Signature Hill

A very different view to recent shots, looking from the bridge towards Signature Hill

Looking east from the bridge

Crackenback and High Noon today

I expect a few more cms of snow tonight and the mainstream forecasters have predicted significant snowfalls over Monday through Wednesday next week. That should set up all the upper runs and the main range nicely.

Please be careful on the roads, there have been three accidents in the past week that I know of. A tour bus failed to stop at the bottom of the Alpine Way and ended up on its roof very close to cabins in the Snowline Caravan Park. On Wednesday we came across a fully laden cement truck that had rolled on the Alpine Way below Fullr Farm. By the time we arrived, Steve Ashe and others had bravely pulled the driver from the vehicle, which was leaking fuel and in a very dangerous state of affairs. Finally, a staff car crashed yesterday en route to Thredbo.