More wind and more wind affected snow
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Temperatures rose through last night until they finally began to fall with frontal passage around 4am. We had a nice burst of snow from around 9am - 10am which dropped a quick 2”, and with that added to this mornings 3” report, the mountain had about 5” of snow from this storm.
The wind picked up during the day, forcing temporary lift closures for Storm Peak and Morningside. By the time I got up there for my afternoon of skiing, the wind had died down and the sun even made an appearance for my last couple of runs. The snow in the upper half of the Priest Creek area was very wind affected and more difficult skiing than the day before, but areas at lower elevation like parts of Lower Shadows and the Rolex trees did not see as much wind and skied very well. There are even pockets of deep untracked snow hiding about.
Good skiing on the lower mountain as well as it wasn’t as windy down there. Generally soft snow everywhere on the hill, with wind affected powder on the firm side. I took Lower Vagabond down for a ride up Thunderhead at the end of the day, and that groomer was skiing great. Even Heavenly Daze had soft carveable snow.
Far more sun than snow looks to be on tap for the remainder of the year, but the skiing is great right now!
