Light At The End Of The Tunnel?

Last weekend was a weekend of contrasts. Saturday presented zero visibility on the upper half of the mountain. This resulted in no queues on T-bars but big queues on the chairlifts. The Transfer Banked Slalom event was postponed due to zero vis.

Sunday arrived and the sun was out over the entire resort. The T-bars had massive queues and the Transfer Banked Slalom was held. The chairlifts gave up much of their long queues to the T-bars.

True Blue finally got groomed in 2016 - three days in a row. My first run on True Blue on Saturday was very nice but as the corduroy got scraped off, the marbles got bigger and deeper and after my 3rd run I gave it away. I took my first run on Sunday morning down True Blue. It was excellent, especially considering the amount of grass showing at the bottom of World Cup and around Tower 10. I did four quick runs before even thinking of going anywhere else. To the groomers: a job well done!

The Sunday queue on the Basin T-bar got even worse with Kareela Cross being closed due to the icy conditions meaning there was no escape from the bottom of the Basin.

After the weekend things warmed up. We had a temperature inversion on Monday morning but the wind chill has remained in negative double digits. There were no queues and no further grooming of True Blue :-(

Yesterday was much the same. Despite continual plus temperatures up top there is still a lot of frozen off-piste and despite some snow making the groomed runs quickly turned from extreme firm to deep sugar.

Meadows Sunday morning

First tracks on True Blue Sunday

Sunday Basin queue 100% bigger than on Saturday

Tuesday - morning pink dawn indicating a change

And we could do with a change - a white one

Wiamea down to Cruiser - off piste was boiler plate

Looking out to Signature Hill yesterday (Tuesday)

Supertrail with ice, grass and deep sugar
Friday Flat in the distance

This morning's hue an indication of an even bigger change on the way
taken just before clouds rolled in and obscured upper slopes

But you've got to admit, it was quite beautiful for the few moments that the dawn rays got through

I didn't bother going out this morning after early morning rain and then seeing the cloud roll in over the peaks together with the plus temperatures. I'm going shopping.

As for the forecasts ... is there any point quoting them? For those who still hold out hope that the forecasters know what they are doing - they predict healthy snow falls on Friday with some flow-on over the weekend. Oh, I so hope so.

There's only six and half weeks left in season 2016 ... the clock is ticking ... the end is approaching ...