As the storm moved east this morning, we were left on the backside of the low. That brought a stiff wind from the northeast and low level clouds. For a while we wondered if Summit would open today, or end up on windhold. But, run it they did, as Roundhouse was not ready to serve as a backup plan.
The snow was surprisingly winter-like fresh from top to bottom on the groomed runs this morning. But flat light and stiff winds kept many of us from making those screaming fast corduroy carving runs back to Summit.
Over time, we had more and more frequent breaks in the clouds, and that encouraged us to explore off piste. We found excellent small moguls and softer snow on D8 and Terry’s Return, which have not been groomed of late. I also pushed farther across Alpine Bowl and found nice moguls and minimal sastrugi around Pygmy Forest and Lower Palisades. Lower down on the mountain, Yellow was not quite as pleasant.
Toward noon, we noted that the lower mountain was starting to corn up. The winds finally started tapering around 2PM, and it looks like most of the mountain was above freezing by closing time today. So things will be different tomorrow. There’s warmer temperatures and freezes overnight through at least Friday, so corn will be the name of the game soon.
Late addition today…and this makes sense to us too:
