Sugar, Sugar was the theme song of the day. When you haven’t had much new snow, and it gets groomed and tilled over and over, that snow turns sugary. So as I went skiing for the first time in 3 days this morning, it was that Archie’s song that kept playing over and over in my head. In case the ear worm has not bitten you yet, here’re the song:
https://youtu.be/eX28cgKHHyc?t=15
It’s not a terrible thing, that sugar. We prefer that it get converted to corn, when there is more sun later in the season. The mountain operations people and grooming staff have done a great job of spreading that sugar around and organizing it into neat corduroy strips. As long as you’re at the mountain early, you can rally that corduroy at high speeds and really fly with some big arcing turns. But that thrill is short lived, as more and more people get that corduroy all torn up and there’s loose sugar sitting on a firm base. That’s still fun stuff. But eventually you get piles of sugar and open sections of super firm snow (aka ice). Not so fun.
The good news is that it’s been warm enough the last few days that southern exposures are softening in the afternoon, at least that is what has been reported. (Hey! Andy did a report today too.) I did not ski that long today as I would like this head cold to not advance any farther into my chest.
Note that this warming really only applies to Sherwood and Lakeview. I attempted some off piste lines on the front side this morning and had my brain rattled.
Kicking The Can Down The Road
There’s no comforting news in the forecast for new snow at the moment. While there was pretty good hope for a big pattern change by the upcoming weekend, the chances for that happening have been kicked down the road.
We’re still stuck in this weird pattern we posted last week:
In that situation, storms are moisture starved. So BA mentioned snow possibilities Tuesday night, Saturday and Monday…subject to change. None of those impulses are expected to bring more than a few inches of snow at the crest. Talk of a larger scale change is now in the region of the 18-20th. Reading various forecasters opinions of what that change looks like…maybe inside slider set up…maybe a zonal flow…maybe that holy grail of a Gulf Of Alaska Low setup. There has been very little run to run consistency or model agreement lately.
So a friend asked today if I was really going to come out skiing every day this week when conditions are “not optimal”. My answer was “Of course.” Missing three days this week was a strong reminder of missing 45 days last season due to injury. Take whatever skiing you can get when you can get it, because you never know what happens next.