Snow Reports - telling it like it is
THE FALLS REPORT… they are quite a literary bunch!
Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice…
Between melting and freezing
The soul’s sap quivers…
This is the spring time
But not in time’s covenant. Now the hedgerow
Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom
Of snow, a bloom more sudden
Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading,
Not in the scheme of generation.
‘Little Gidding’ T.S. Eliot
Midwinter Spring.
After fresh snow last weekend and then days and days of cold sunshine and glacial temperatures overnight, yesterday we were getting a little ahead of ourselves. Today also seems to have forgotten what month we’re in.
No-one’s complaining. Ski patrol isn’t treating people for quivering soul sap or sudden blooming (I understand there’s something you can take for the latter, but I suspect it only works when taken with a lot of whiskey and is also not in the scheme of generation). Today will be like another little spring sampler, a foretaste of our September during our midwinter.
The seasons are inevitably generalisations in the mountains, and to generalise is to be an idiot as William Blake has told us. We have seen summer in autumn this year already and we will see some winter in spring.
Today we’ll enjoy the reverse. Like everyone who was out there yesterday afternoon, we relished the opportunity to ski on ever-so-slightly softening snow. We’re not quite there yet, after only one or two freeze/thaws, but corn snow is the next best thing to skiing and snowboarding in fresh powder, sometimes we wonder if it’s not our first preference (sacrilege to even say it we know). Right now the surface is still fast but it welcomes an edge and you can throw a bit of snow around in your turns.
Speaking of reverse, the parks will be perfect this morning. Take it easy out there in Panorama Park or head over to Ruined Castle to see all the big air and slopestyle action of ‘Storm the Castle’. The warm up laps and qualifying jam sessions start from 10:00am this morning, with the finalists strutting their stuff from late morning. Don’t miss a trick.
Tomorrow could be anything. Quite how and where this atmospheric mass of air will move around us has all the models and all the forecasters confounded. We might be lucky and end up with 10 cents worth of mixed lollies. Or the little white lolly bag could get wet through, the bottom falls out of it, and we end up with nothing but what we have already, which is plenty.
Don’t die wondering. Today is the day. “Carpe Diem” as the late and very great Robin Williams once reminded us.
THE FALLS REPORT
Snooze button?
It snowed nicely for a while yesterday and we thought we’d dodged the proverbial nerf bullet (this being a pacifist report). What fell on the mountain overnight was also mostly snow, with our observations showing quite a bit of precipitation in the gauge while the mercury remained just below zero. However, the fool temperature stuck his head above the parapet in the past few hours, probably wanting to take a look at all his good work, and in so doing has seen some of it undone.
It’s dripping and downright drizzly miserable out there right now, but it’s not raining hard enough to do any real damage, just washing a little wet snow off balustrades and snowmobile seats, and out of snow gauges apparently (ski patrol says we’ve received a net nothing since 6:00am yesterday, but we saw it with our own four eyes). The good news is most of the snow that has fallen on the snow-pack since yesterday is likely to stick.
We’re not trying to pretend for a moment however that what we’ve received in the last 24 hours is anything like the same quality as the superdry VicPow we’ve grown accustomed to this season. This new stuff is heavy, wet and icky. But what Australia’s former poet laureate Doug Walters used to say about beer – “There’s no such thing as a bad beer, just some beers are better than others” – is also true for snow. Even Spakfilla has its uses, and this sticky goop will serve to cover over a few cracks. Then with any luck we’ll have a lick of real white magic on top of that again tomorrow, when the temperature and the freezeline drops and we have snow and snow alone above 1400 metres.
If you’re up here already, we think you might as well go out and enjoy some snow surfing on or perhaps more accurately in our slightly rain-affected upsized slurpee. But if you’re down in the valley somewhere wondering about this morning, we’d go to Plan B. We almost hung out the Do Not Disturb sign ourselves this morning, but we’ll put on our big blue raincoat and rubber gloves and get out there for a few turns. If it’s good enough for the Renault SnowClub Kids…
In brighter news there are better days ahead, with the remainder of the week looking very lovely indeed. The winds ease and the snow clears from tomorrow, and then we have another run of blue skies, zephyr breezes and low overnight temperatures right through the weekend. Great news for all the women enrolled in our three day Mim Sodergren program which starts on Friday (see below).
Today’s Weather.
The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting a windy and cloudy day with patchy rain and areas of snow above 1700 metres. Winds will be south to southeasterly at 25 to 40 km/h, with stronger gusts already, becoming southerly at 20 to 30 km/h during the morning. The forecast minimum temperature is -1, with a maximum of 3 degrees expected.
if it wasn’t such a mission, I think I’d ride at falls Creek.
I love their snow reports this year…. (and I think they’ve done a pretty good job of their master plan thingy too)
THE FALLS REPORT
In praise of new snow.
There’s nothing like a layer of fresh snow to put a spring back into the step of our mountain. It’s like sleeping on clean sheets.
When you go for a week or two between snowstorms or visits to the laundry (because your wife is out of town), the mountain always loses a little of its lustre. It might still be skiing beautifully, and it has been here all August, but it starts to look a little frayed around the edges, grubby at the cuffs and collars, and even in the places where there’s plenty of snow it gradually takes on the slightly off-white tone of those not-so-very-bad ‘Before’ shots in the tooth whitening infomercials.
Now the entire mountain is refreshed and several shades whiter. We’ve had about 10cm on top of an already solid base since this front came through on Monday night. All the trails are whiter-than-white again and the people are brighter-than-bright. The stains have come out in the wash and our mountain looks like foreman material all over again.
It’s still snowing lightly now and, with the temperature down below –4, it’s not just any old snow, it’s our Superdry VicPow. The clouds should clear through the morning and the winds should begin to ease as well, so the skiing through the next few days will be a treat, with the cold overnight temperatures keeping everything nice.
And the forecast for the weekend is nothing short of incredible. Two bluebird days with no wind on near-new snow. It might just be the best weekend in all of September.
In praise of snowmaking.
In a season like this one, we haven’t had to over-rely on our wonderful snow-makers, but like those earnest couples are always saying over a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits in the insurance commercials, it’s nice to know it’s there.
Last night, like every night, our snowmaking team were ready to go at a moment’s notice, and they’ve been pumping quality snow onto all the home trails, terrain parks and beginner areas for hours, and even shoring up some old favourites like International and South Gully. It’s not for nothing we’re renowned as Australia’s most snow-sure resort.
In praise of skiing dads.
Our father taught his five kids to ski sharing only two pairs of boots, one-and-a-half pairs of skis (for some reason) and a toboggan for our baby sister to have a nap in.
We were in Kiandra as I recall, at the edge of a car park and just shy of a creek, but not shy enough for our younger brother as it turned out and that left only the one pair of boots between us on the first day.
That was more than 40 years ago and we remember remembering those first days more than we actually remember them. We replayed and relived those first wonky slides hundreds of times as kids, watching ourselves in bleached out home movies projected onto the back of a door, always stopping just before the creek or not, with no sound other than the rapid clicking of the little Hanimex projector on the dining table and the laughter of the audience in all the same places. Show us again Dad. Show us again.
Our father died suddenly when we were still teenagers and young adults, and we quietly salute him every time we make a good turn. He didn’t live to meet his favourite granddaughter, much less to ski with her or see her become an instructor herself and go on to teach any number of little children to ski. But we’re always proud on his behalf.
Dads aren’t always as useful as mums, but they may not be around to ski or snowboard with us forever. So while we’re here, let’s spend another day out there together, and make a little home movie in your head so you can always remember remembering him.
Dads ski for free at Falls Creek on Father’s Day, this coming Sunday.
The wind was so strong it broke mine and 7 mates snowboards in 2! these strange stick things also appeared 
What place is this? Ours is still normal wind, nothing windy noticed.
A couple of crackers near the end of season….
from Hotham
Get out for skiing and boarding early today, as rain is expected to develop later in the afternoon and overnight. Groomed runs will be nice for carving, our fave pick is Brockhoff and Snake Gully where there`s still lots of snow cover and you can get in some big wide carves.
Can’t Imagine what Brockoff is like at this time… and big wide carves????
and from Falls…
SNOW REPORT SNAPSHOT
24 September 2014 at 7:00am
LIFTS EXPECTED TO OPEN: 11*
OVERNIGHT TEMPERATURE: 5.3
NATURAL SNOW DEPTH: 50cm+ PRECIPITATION: Threatening
SNOWMAKING DEPTH: 90cm+ VISIBILITY: Good (5km)
NEW SNOW LAST 24 HRS: 0cm
OVERNIGHT SNOWMAKING: Big fat no
LAST SNOWFALL DATE: 18 September
VILLAGE ROADS: Clear
BOGONG HIGH PLAINS ROAD: Road open and clear. Always carry chains and fit where directed.
* Check the new app for up-to-date lift status.
+ Snow depth shown is average of open areas.
THE FALLS REPORT
Red sky dawning.
In keeping with the finest traditions of aeromancy, shepherds and sailors will have taken warning from the crimson sky this morning, and even these new-fangled computer models the meteorologists are now using are telling us there’s some weather on the way.
We’ve never particularly liked the expression ‘puking’ to describe the pristine phenomenon of falling snow, but right now it does look like someone has thrown up on the radar screen, with a technicolour yawn of a storm descending on us from the north (we’re sorry but we think we can even see pieces of carrot in it).
We may end up with only isolated showers out of it all this morning, but there is also a possibility of thunderstorms (“a possibility” is the collective noun for thunderstorms as we understand), and our mountain office will be on the lookout and ready to call everybody in if need be.
It’s funny you say that, Tambo, I only just found out yesterday that the little steep section just past the Cornice is actually part of Brockhoff. It is indeed open and the bottom part you are probably thinking of is closed.
It’s funny you say that, Tambo, I only just found out yesterday that the little steep section just past the Cornice is actually part of Brockhoff. It is indeed open and the bottom part you are probably thinking of is closed.
yep, I was talking to Wildman about it… we came to the same conclusion.