Two wet nights in a row...just two too many! My favorite old BR350 let me down two out of three shifts so far this week, too. Something's gotta give!
Thursday's storm was a first for the season...it arrived 18 hours ahead of schedule, but it was rain, not flurries...
Thursday night, after the rain and a day of warm temps, swing shift opted to do little grooming in the rain (the proper call...wouldn't be prudent to turn the whole mountain into boiler-plate!) Tough conditions...fortunately the number of ponds, creeks and sinks is down. Down because the piste is up...a little.
My crew of four tiptoed into the night. Conditions: Delicate. A thin hard tempered crust had formed atop the gooey pack. Things turned out OK if you barely scratched the snow with the blade, careful not to pierce the ''Cream Filled Center", and crawled along slowly enough to let the tiller grind the scrapin's enough to lay acceptable corduroy...
Or you could double pass everything...ahh, double passing...Groomer's Purgatory. You don't get any more groomed, but you see more scenery...faster...twice...
Looking at the remote sensors on Friday evening, I see the temperature has been below 32°F since that midnight shift change Thursday night.
From my glass is half full perspective, tonight will be better. That "cream filled center" will be well below the reach of even the most aggressive, or careless blade. More aggro blade work will yield more scrapin's for hungry tillers, yielding a bit of fairy-dust to comb into corduroy...while praying for calm winds...
A week of these conditions will bring the return of the Alt-Hero Snow, a couple of movable inches of velvety topping that skis nicely during the day, and repairs quickly every night.
The sad truth is Thursday's rain will help us persevere until the storm door reopens in mid-February...and we still have snowmaking to help with the patchwork!
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