Pulling into the lot in the AM I was greeted by a mere dusting on the ground.  A quick trip to the peak revealed 5 to 8″ of light density top to bottom.  Go figure.  The wind was insistent and the snow fall formidable as the storm moved in earlier than predicted.  By 11:30 AM east facing was fully knee deep thanks to the increasing WNW wind transporting the goodness to the adjacent shots.  Mind you; the west and southern exposures were getting their share, but the Peruvian side was getting the lion’s share.  The bottom features were still fully in play due to the quite light density , which did little to cushion the  gnar below.  High north aspects still had a bit more skiability and were the best call , but they were restricted, briefly, by the closure of the Contest venue.  This closure was lifted as the visibility and high winds caused a postponement of the event.  The National Freeride competition is being held this week so the usual areas are going to be out of play at different times through out the week.  The contestants are streaming in and will be present all week so be on the look out for some stellar folks scouting  the lines.  That is always a great thing to see as very unusual approaches to the hill are going off all around.  The Contest, itself, will be fantastic with the new snow and high energy.  Tomorrow will, no doubt, be a powder panic so bear that in mind when planning your day’s strategy.   Heavy snow really kicked in around 1:00Pm and the deeper sections were well over knee deep but still did not mitigate the bottom features very much.  With the large amount of new snow be sure to check canyon road conditions before leaving the house so as not to get caught up in the traffic crush in the morning.  This is the one we have been waiting for so be still and rock hard!!!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 9th, 2009 at 3:11 pm and is filed under Snow Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.