Cheap Thrills

Friday night provided conditions for good snow making and on a bright, sunny, calm Saturday morning Snowgums chair was fired up for skiing & boarding from top station to BunnyWalk station.

Conditions were smooth and firm on large man-made whales. Marion made the first tracks after ski patrol who were busy putting up netting and 'closed' signs. Three runs later and 'coffee time' was called, making us first customers for Sandy, Kylie & Ruby in Black Sallees for season 2013. It wasn't much later when we were joined by Reggae, Amanda and the kids.

The whales started to soften and the snow quality improved a little with a thin film of soft appearing on the otherwise solid base. A couple more runs and the crowd increased to the point where I was happy to call it a day.

This morning conditions looked similar to yesterday except that low cloud overnight had meant limited snow making. After what Leif had told me about High Noon yesterday I thought it best to head back to the Upper Supertrail. This time I was first after ski patrol and the first run on a corduroy finish was quite pleasant. It all went down hill (pun intended) from there as the corduroy turned to a field of marbles and with each successive run the marbles shifted into ever bigger piles leaving scratchy ice sheets between. Five runs and no coffee and it was back to the office for me - hence this early report.

As far as I know there are no connecting runs yet open between the Supertrail and the High Noon side of the resort.

Despite my whining, you can't complain about the weather for being outdoors - it's simply brilliant. It's just the volume and quality of the snow that is wanting - or am I just spoilt after last year?

The cover on the Cat Walk looks good but alas not open

Looking up the Supertrail from above BunnyWalk station yesterday (Saturday) morning

Looking down to BunnyWalk station where it all gets a little narrow

The Upper Supertrail yesterday afternoon as cloud began to roll in

Sundance with High Noon in the background

A close-up of High Noon yesterday arvo
Yes, Thredbo is top-to-bottom, just

There is a very distinct line where the natural snow has settled to
and that's well above the village.

Just to help fill up the report - Sundance with High Noon in the background
seen through different eyes

The mountain crew have done a great job to get as much open as possible, considering the conditions. It's much better than 1982 (not that I expect many of you to remember that year) thankfully for the huge investment put into the snow making installations. Conditions will improve - we are still in June (for today at least ;-).

Studying the charts this morning, next weekend looks as though it could deliver a reasonable dump of snow. Of course those charts may look very different tomorrow or the next day. Consistency in forecasting has not been a strong point this year.

If you want a laugh then take a look at the Thredbo web site weather report where you can see that the temperature is 100C. Now that's global warming and yet the snow is frozen solid ;-)

Yes, of course the weather instruments are broken once again. The wind measuring instrument (anemometer) above Thredbo was only just fixed last week and now it's the thermometer. Unlike on my weather graphs (put together over a couple of bored weekends) where I default to a zero position when instruments fail, the KT graphs like to max-out to the highest value. Ah - technology - great when it works.