If you're referring to @DidSurfNowSki post, firstly he said he is catching early bus so parking is irrelevant. He will be dropped at ATS and will be beating the crowds. As it looks like being a storm day the last thing I'd do based on similar days this season is catch Gully to the bowl. Eagle has been really unreliable starting and turning in bad weather and means you're a but stuck in the bowl if Summit not turning or bad vis. Load Halleys, always first priority to get turning and you've got the whole mountain as your options depending on weather and lifts.

 

Because they don't give a rats.

 

See ya on Mon/Tues.

 

Decoding this morning's resort email ...

After a breezy day yesterday, the wind will be easing today.
80 kmh gusts and general windhold = breezy!

Temperatures will be cold today and with wind chill it will feel like -5, so be sure to rug up.
There'll be wind chill of -10 to -13 according to BOM.

We are expecting more snow this afternoon with around 20cm expected to fall - bring it on!
= we hope 20cm will fall. The reading will be at the gauges, not on the pistes.

There will be 14/14 lifts open and 30 groomed runs to have some fun on.
There may be 14 lifts open, discounting ice, failures and high wind gusts.

The groomers will be firm and fast this morning so head there early for some brilliant turns.
The groomers will be icy. Wait for the boarders to scrape some dust off the top of the corduroy.

The grooming team's pick of the day is Highway 83, so be sure to check it out.
There's some windblown snow on 83; good for the first half hour.

 

oh for days of Anthony O'Shea. a little bit of spin but actual information in the daily email, and usually a good laugh too

 

Yep. His emails could have gone into a marketing text book as examples of how to do it.

 

Today..... very icy and firm under ski first up, snow started early - dust on crust. The fresh accumulated quickly and it was great skiing in harsh conditions. Ski the storm for good times.

Idiots still prevailing on the road from all accounts. Some amazing examples of stupid driving relayed to me from two copper friends who were driving up mid morning.

 

Falls Creek - Trip Report

The day started off early in Bright, driving past a huge doe. The road between Bright and Mt Beauty was lots of fun. I made it safely to Mt Beauty and caught the bus.



Can’t recommend the bus highly enough, door to door service.

Even though I had prebooked my lift pass, I still needed to queue up in line for my RFID ticket. Once that was out of the way it was time to follow my nose as there wasn’t a single trail map to be found.

The first hour was horrid, refrozen crud. Luckily the storm front hit and there was no prefrontal.



The snow just got better and better throughout the day with about 15cm of fresh falling throughout the day



The best runs of the day were down corkscrew. The snow was being blown in sideways into a gully that had some visibility.

Lunch was had at the Frying Pan, a nice little hut.



I ended the day lapping summit and international. Not a huge day VM wise but it never is when skiing fresh snow in a storm in Oz.

I was very happy to catch the bus back down to the car at the end of the day.

Tomorrow onto Hotham.

I’ll edit this post with my ski track once I’ve polished off this parmie.

Tada...

 

Today was very

 

Yep. What a stunning morning it was - blue sky, high swirling clouds and fresh dry snow. South side runs had been groomed since the precip stopped last night but there was plenty of off-piste action, the soft snow being boot deep in some places.
I was gobsmacked to see a couple of Magpies harassing an Owl in the air near Windy Cnr.
And the Slug of the Week award goes to the AWD that did 20 kmh from Howman's to the Village - no chains (that I could see), no skill and no courtesy. Two out of three might cut it, not three out of three.

 

What a weekend

Saturday was a first lift to last lift kinda day....minus an hour or so as the bullet proof surface was covered with light powdery snow.

This morning was fun in the sun. Some deep windblown to be found....and we found.

Off the hill around 12.00 as the temp dropped as did the cloud.

Nursing a bruised thigh with a disagreement a tree.....the tree beat me up pretty good , but didn't break me

 

Toured McKay yesterday. Probably the best touring day I’ve had in a Aus, certainly in the top few. Bit firm up top due to the SW’ly but oh my the sheltered aspects and down low was just sublime... and plenty deep. Couple of resort laps before heading out then 5 laps followed by the long painful slog down Road 24. Snow stayed dry and chalky right up until about ~2pm when the weather really closed in and we bugged out.

 

Noted on the way out to McKay that ski patrol had kicked off the cornice on St Elmo’s Slide resulting in a small slab releasing. Nothing over serious or concerning about that but it highlights just how much snow is around. She’s bloody full!

 

What's the go with roping off area at rapunzels?

Makes an easy traverse to lakeside on a snowboard a PIA

 

where abouts is it roped? does seem a bit strange, especially given quartz ridge runs right between Rapunzels and Lakeside.

 

They've extended the groomed trail there. There was previously just a link between the bottom of Monkey Bar and Rapunzels.
Dunno whether the extended run is what's sposed to be Quartz ridge but I've never seen a groomer run that far before.

 

maybe instructive of how much snow is in there?

 

For sure.

 

Can't come off towers chair and take the highest line under quartz.
Have to go 150m or so down rapunzels then hard hard right over to lakeside.
Could be a caution as so much snow fallen?
I've never seen it there before

 

Yeah neither have I. Used to love the hard left off the chair and dropping down off the rocks and bumps around Quartz Ridge.

 

FIS standard skier/boarder cross for an international event this week.

 

Visibility went between fair & poor today with unfortunately more of the latter.
Didn’t get on mountain until 12. The Y’s were chopped and snow around Apres was heavy. Summit reasonable, along with Sun Valley.
The snow fence at the top of Scott’s was almost completely buried. 2 weeks ago you could still see half of it.
Saw a first today.........guy skiing down a run having a full on conversation on his phone. Just ski ya pelican.
Oh, and had a chairlift ride with Chris & Bec Judd.

 

Couple more from Sunday at Mckay.

 

Whats your setup Chops? (I don't follow the BC thread)

 

This morning on the south side it was bullet proof first up and gradually softened to a very tolerable cream.
Vis was the curate's egg. The ridge peeped into sunlight from time to time and occasionally the slopes were in luminous fog. Very atmospheric. I skied from Summit to Ruined and had to set a compass bearing.
Pulled the pin at lunchtime after a shot out of bounds; the snow was soft, pillowed and sticky. Yuk.

 

Tequila shots in the backcountry now that’s a thing!

 

Yeah I was hoping for a bit more cloud free today but it wasn't to be. Had to do Ruined by Braille at one stage.
Few laps of Zipper, Skyline and Après early on. Even got a couple down a groomed Y's.
Rest of the day between Scotts and Towers.

 

I thought that was a misprint when I read that they'd groomed the Y's

 

Been groomed on a semi regular basis for years.

 

I'm seeing guys texting as they start a run.

 

V nice McKay shots from Chopps.

 

Saw a new i phone in the snow under the lift 1/2 up Wombats at Buller " Laugh I nearly shat " Last thing I want to do is listen to my phone when I go skiing leave alone talk on it

 

I notice that they tend to rotate the grooming around Summit and International.

 

Which is good. You don't want that area to be a golf course. Nice mix of groomed, little bumps, bigger bumps is good.

 

I must've only skied it on powder days (or bumps/rut days)

 

Snowfall and depth history going back some years...
https://www.onthesnow.com.au/austra...-resort/historical-snowfall.html?y=2018&q=top

 

Cover and weather were curate's egg today.
First up was frozen monochrome with a good number of ravens circling for some reason. Things improved.
I found some of the sweetest slopes of the season out of bounds.

 

Are you going to tell us where it is? Probably not.

 

Frozen early on but good skiing off north facing Rocky knobs today after lunch .

 

Ziggy's secret sidecountry stash, eh? I'll wear a blindfold, I'll cross my heart and promise on Jane's snow report that I won't tell a soul. Next week could be looking good.

 

Nah he is just teasing.
There was a south facing valley of wind blown about 5 acres maybe.

 

Take a look from the ***** or the top of ****** - there's a heap of green and blue slopes outbounds that are a modest shuffle from the resort. They're usually untouched. And also variable; sweet one day and sour the next.

 

I've just watched the 50 sec grab from Falls Creek Resort on Facebook at the bottom of Halleys. Are folk who stay in and around Snowgum Lane still able to get through to the lift around the back there? Looks like a big stockpile of snow on the access path.

PS, Just got a CHAINS MUST BE FITTED TO ALL VEHICLES notification from the FC app.

 

Hmm, my version was the usual. .. all 2WD, AWD advised, 4WD excepted.

 

You are both correct

 

The earlier message was apparently for nursery

 

I'll take their advice and fit chains to my AWD when forced to

 

Same here as I have fitted Potenzas on my Forester mainly for a bit of quiet but they are not actually that quiet anyway! Tread does not look too good for ice and snow but they have not been too bad on a little bit of slush that I have encountered this season but I am not sure about a decent amount of snow or ice!

 

We do.

 

This morning you had 3 choices:

• Put 'em on
• Turn around and drive back down
• Get fined.