The air continued cold this morning, and did not really warm up all that much as the Sun got high in the sky, which kept the snow quality refrigerated and fluffy for the duration.  The wind had begun to set the off trail snow up in places.  One East facing shot in Mineral Basin looked good, but was not yet supportable and left me doing the survival dance down the entire line looking for some consistency.  Meanwhile, just 500′ further North the buff was in full effect and offering smooth goodness.  I should have dropped in there… shoulda woulda coulda…, but that is what keeps you guessing, I guess.  There is some medium amplitude interference developing in the high traffic areas, as the new snow begins to get worked.  The spacing is fairly long and round, creating a good line line through the troughs for those of us with knee issues.  Younger knees can just blast’em, mine… not so much.  Tomorrow look for the Groomers to, again, offer ripping smooth lines top to bottom.  The old crust is still in play here and there, but the Groomers seem to have homogenized the majority of slick spots, eliminating those pesky tiles.  Off trail, I have been using the larger averaged turns to mitigate the few surprises that  can be found, though those spots do not really pose any problems.  The continued cold will be keeping the snow soft and blastable, but , as I found out today, just a few feet of aspect change can make a huge difference, so look around for a better line if there is room to move.  Here is a shot of Thirteen Turns looking as pristine as it really is.   Yumm!!!   IBBY!!

THIRTEEN TURNS

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 9th, 2011 at 5:16 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.