Fourth Start To The Season

As Kim so pointedly brought to our attention the other day - this is the fourth time the season has started. Around 20cm of fresh up top and strong cold winds have really freshened up the resort but despite all this the base is still very thin and fragile.

It looked very promising last night but somewhere the snowfall lightened up and we still need more. There are open creeks on major runs and plenty of rocks lurking for the unaware. Even moi ground both skis over a fluffy pillow on lower Cannonball.

All that said, it was a fun morning. The front face of Crackenback was skied out in record time but hunting around could still find some nice freshies. Much lighter in the trees under Snowgums but upper exposed slopes kept filling in with the help of the strong wind.

Meadows snow depth yesterday and again this morning

Upper World Cup (and onsen ;-) first ride up this morning

I couldn't resist pulling up and snapping this on first ride down

Second ride up and World Cup had been seriously trashed

First tracks down the top of Cannonball were sweet but I still bailed at mid station

Frozen waterfall at the top of Gunbarrel (taken yesterday)

Merritts Falls still exposed after the last rain fall

There were some lovely runs with freshies to be had
Sundance (open again) was not one of them

I did several over the Rim Run

There was some cross country trekking involved but worth it

There is still some top-up falls of snow forecast over the next couple of days. Hopefully the wind will continue to fill the creeks and gullies?

With luck (and some global cooling), this will be the last time the resort starts the ski season this year - there's less than one week to August.