The clear night brought a hard freeze to the hill, which set up yesterday’s thaw up tougher than nails.  Tenderizing efforts were employed on some of the main lines on the hill, with the best consistency happening on the Peruvian Gulch, where that line felt fast and velvety.   Out in Mineral Basin, the Sun was going to take quite a while to heat things up, with the off trail areas very difficult, but the Groomers were offering consistent granularity for the first hour before it began to get stirred up by the traffic.   After breakfast, a quick lap out to Lewis and Clark revealed some serious Ratchet Chop on the lower pitches, where the granular loose snow had been piled up with very greasy tiles in between the piles.  This was distinctly different than Harbor Chop, where the piles solidify.  This is spring time conditions a month early. Here is a shot of the interference patterns built up on Upper Silver Fox, highlighted by the morning Sun.  There is still some chalky feel on these High North aspects and will still be holding the cold after today’s very cold start.  The break did not begin until well after 1:00PM, when some of the aspects began to soften and become a bit more approachable.   Tomorrow, look for another slow start as the night will be cold once again.   I am always about First Tram, but it would not hurt a bit to wait for a later start.  I will still be working the morning session, but I did go for the Forklift Chair early today.  Look for tenderizing efforts to be employed once again, and those lines are best when fresh and untracked.  Here is another very interesting fashion statement I saw today.  Dress for morning cold.  Ciao!!

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 19th, 2015 at 5:25 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.