It’s that odd time of the year where it can be either winter or spring from day to day. Then, there’s the transition days, where we temporarily switch from one season to another. There was some great skiing today, and some “not as great” skiing today. The key is knowing exactly where to be at the right time. We don’t always get that right.
The morning lineup at Summit was full of chatter about whether or not High Traverse was spared from the midday sun yesterday or not. The lifts spun and small groups pushed onto chairs, anticipating the powder turns that lay ahead. As we crested D8, we were greeted by a brilliant shimmer from the morning sun on Lake Tahoe, and then raced through the shack toward Upper Saddle. I politely stepped aside and let the race horses by, and used them as the subject matter for this photo.
Unfortunately today was one of those days where we were not in the right place at the right time. Both the sun and the wind had done their damage. There was a thin breakable sun crust, over windpack, over a second layer of sun crust leftover from the weekend. As Andy took off down Sun Bowl, making the turns look easy, you could see the broken chunks of snow piling up like roofing shingles in his tracks. I tried traversing farther toward Big Bend, it wasn’t really any better. It was a slog to get down to the better snow down in the trees. Fortunately, I only had one ski sucked off mid-turn on the way down.
At some point today, it probably softened “just enough” before it got too heavy!
So it was another fantastic day for the groomed runs! The snow was starting to get “clumpy” around noon. I would expect we will see some corn transition on south facing groomed runs by tomorrow.
North facing terrain off piste snow skied softly, for the most part. I managed to find some icy moguls exposed in Peter’s Peril and below Sympathy Face. The south facing terrain stayed pretty firm until later in the day. Increasing winds in the afternoon kept temperatures from rising too much.
Another Spring Storm Arrives Thursday Evening
The next storm in the series arrives Thursday, bringing clouds and winds for Thursday and snowfall in the evening. This storm is not forecast to be as cold as our last few storms. Snow levels could be as high as 7000 feet when the storm arrives, dropping to 5000 feet on Friday. The GFS is the model that trends the wettest, bring the potential for about a foot of snow. The Euro looks the weakest at around 6 inches of snowfall. Snow showers may continue into the weekend. After that, it looks like a return to spring…
