Moving Right Along - To Who Knows Where

Oh what a strange season and what a strange week. Unfortunately I must report that many forecasters have been through their extreme inconsistencies once again. The forecast sunny day yesterday wasn't and the forecast 35cms of snow for today has been reduced to 6cms and that doesn't look like happening either.

After the heavy going of the fresh last Saturday (see previous report) the sun came out on Sunday morning along with the crowds. The snow conditions were much more pleasant than the day before. Dry wind blown snow on wind packed powder. I spent considerable time in around the Cannonball area getting fresh lines run after run. Later, the fog moved in on the upper slopes. Upper T-bars were closed due to the lack of visibility.

Monday was a completely different day. I dressed for skiing opened the door and suddenly realised it was raining. That's correct, I don't do rain. I turned around, changed clothes and went to Canberra to do some shopping. It was raining there too. Reports from the die-hards were that up high there was soft creamy fresh snow. The tracks seen on Tuesday indicted this was true.

Tuesday and that fresh snow had set to very firm but not frozen snow, making the off piste really bouncy and uncomfortable. The fog rolled back in and I did a Braille run down Exhibition. Luckily the chap, in front of me and slightly to my right, started bouncing up and down indicating he had drifted too far right and was off piste. I adjusted my line more to the left and enjoyed smooth feeling groomed snow through the fog :-)

And then there was today - Wednesday. At 7:00am the sky was crystal blue and not a cloud showing. Light breeze and sub zero temps. Plans were made and out I went onto nice man-made topped-up snow. A tad slow at the bottom but enjoyable all the same. The clear sky was soon replaced with cloud - extremely dark cloud to the north. It felt like it was going to rain so our plans were brought forward a little earlier. After coffee, Marion and I executed our plan and did a long run down into Bogong Valley on 5cms of fresh soft snow. Once down below the tree line the fresh was only 1cm deep but the base was firm and fast. On the final descent we came across some tracks made the day before on what looked to be much deeper and slower snow. Avoiding these set railway lines provided us with smooth fast and soft turns to the bottom. That was only my second run to Dead Horse Gap and I wonder how many more will be made.

Fresh lines amongst the trees on Sunday morning

Sunday was the highlight for me this week
unless you consider Swedish meatballs at Ikea a highlight ;-)

Unfortunately others thought so too - queue on Gunbarrel (photo courtesy of SpongeBob Pete)

This is a fair-dinkum photo of the snow drifts at the top of Basin T-bar on Sunday

Tuesday:- Dream Run looking better - not that that's saying much

Meadows snow depths on Sunday and again yesterday

Today - Wednesday:- Trekking high into Bogong Valley

Marion enjoying the 5cm deep freshies

There's not a lot of snow at the bridge

High Noon and Sundance on Monday morning and now

I could report what the forecasters are reporting but there doesn't seem any point. No one knows what the east coast lows will do or in fact how many east coast lows we might have. May be some snow over Thursday and Friday and hopefully no rain.

As I mentioned earlier, snow making was good last night - hopefully we will get more of it.

I mentioned I did a return trip to Canberra on Monday and I counted 79 kangaroo and wallaby carcasses on the side of the road just between Canberra and Michelago. This is horrendous and means a lot of damaged vehicles and increases to insurance premiums, not to mention enough unnecessary deaths to close a greyhound industry. What's going on? Bad driving? Suicide roo teams? Pokemon Go?