A Magical Day In The Mountains

After another 40+cm of fresh snow, the sun broke out this morning and so did the crowds.

For the prelude to today you should first view Friday's report.

With all lifts open, today managed the crowds better than last Saturday. The wind had packed the new snow in places and built some sastrugi fields and cleared some large sheets of ice but everything else was sweet!

Even though I left for Kosi 15mins earlier than usual, I was still relegated to the singles line. Normal "no friends on powder day" rules applied. Watching the first chair loads head onto the Bluff, I took plan B and got some lovely boot deep untracked snow. Due to the large queue at the bottom, I made alternate arrangements and found a short line on a just-opened Sponars T-bar. On my way in to get some freshies I ran into Jenny and we had a couple of great runs before abandoning the ever-growing queue and faced the Kosi queue just so we could stand in the Basin queue. The Karels queue was acceptable. After coffee it was back out of the resort for some more great snow, between the sastrugi fields.

The snow pack above Kosi mid station is the deepest I have seen in probably a decade. Kareela Face is devoid of rocks and everything has filled in amazingly well over the past couple of weeks.

Eagles Nest and Central Spur this morning

One of the first skiers off Kosi and one of the reasons why I chose Plan B

Jenny in the natural half pipe

Basin T-bar: Buried snow fence and wall of snow where the T-bar track had to be cut out

Even the Karels T-bar line had to be cut out by the groomers

Jenny at a secret location

Sally & Richard at same

Marion on high Bogong

Jenny enjoying a break from the heat of Kununurra
The snow quality is just fantastic - cold and dry

Deep freshies at the bottom of DHG

Another system is already being forecast for next Thursday. What an August we are having. September is also looking promising for great skiing.

Has Lucky Phil spent another of those 9 lives? He showed me his torn parka that had left him hanging from a tree in the Golf Course yesterday :-)