Quick report
The NW facing Thunder Bowl Trees were wind-hammered, and the snow was rock hard (Picture 1). Lower in the sparse trees, the snow did not improve. There were some patches of softer snow, but they were few and far between. As the slope turned due west, below 8700 feet, the snow became softer and almost corn-like (Picture 2). At the bottom of Thunder Bowl, I looked across to the facing SE slopes and observed they were also very wind-hammered with some older roller ball activity near the bottom of the slopes (Picture 3). In general, south and west slopes skied well, while all north and east facing slopes were hard, wind-affected, and/or icy. Back on the Kirkwood boundary ridge, the winds were moderate with bigger gusts and picking up at 2 pm. Cornices on the ridge were very hard and not collapsing.
Weather
- Air Temp
- Upper 40s
- Cloud Cover
- clear
- Wind Loading
- previous
- Recent Snowfall
- None
- Snow Avail For Transport
- none
Beautiful day and warm in the sun. The winds kept temperatures down.
Snowpack
All north facing aspects had very hard, wind-hammered snow. There was basically no snow available for wind transport. Due to the lack of soft snow, there were very few moguls inbounds at the resort, and the few moguls were quite small.