New Snow, Wind and Fast Skiers

The snowfalls continued on Friday until the evening. High winds and poor visibility kept several of the upper lifts closed but for the adventurous there were some great powder runs. We found our tracks covered every time we traversed from Crackenback to Sponars to ski the trees.

Saturday brought brilliant sunshine and the winds had dropped considerably. The rush was on for freshies especially off Karels and Sponars T-bars. The untracked snow did not turn out the way I expected. Many of the steeps had become quite firm from wind packing whilst more wind-protected areas were deeper and almost slabbing.

Aside from all the distraction of fresh off piste skiing there was the Austrian Masters GS race on Saturday. We ended up with 3 runs after timing problems meant that the first run had to be re-run. Between runs I enjoyed the wind drifts around Sponars and Antons. Yes, like some others I raced on powder skis. Crowds were up but not horrific.

After all the publicity about the 80cm of new snow and the weather forecast for fine weather on Sunday I expected much bigger crowds than appeared - all the better for us. Fresh drier wind blown drifts had begun to appear and those who had the pleasure of a run to Dead Horse Gap said it was great.

The Thredbo Masters dual slalom was run on Sunday on a very similar course to Saturday's GS.

The winds were building again by this morning and so were those lovely big dry wind drifts around the top of the resort. The wind chill felt like it was around -20C. Extensive snowmaking added to the lower slopes every night and into the daylight hours.

Peggy on Bunny Walk (Friday)

Freshies under Kosi Express (Saturday morning)

New run-out from Lower Funnel Web

Saturday's Austrian Masters GS

Lucky Phil's re-entry on Wiamea

Sunday's Thredbo Masters qualifiers

Thredbo Masters Play Offs

Monday morning snow making on Supertrail

Wind drifts building on Conrod Straight

The guns were firing again at close of lifts today. The sky is clear, the temp low and the winds strong. A front is due tonight with snow down to 700m tomorrow and into Wednesday.