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We're melting down at the Abbey this week.  Overnight temps of +5.  Lots of mush everywhere, peak to valley.  Its not so good for skiing but great for watching big wet avalanches and the afternoon beer drinking is not so bad either.  We skied Typee on Sunday and now we are skiing the local high country because we are too scared to go low in the valleys and get underneath anything.  Once it cools off, it should be great for the corn season.  Snowpack is down to 330cm.  I haven't seen it this warm at this time of year before.

Ok, now that Ullar or Jesus, or whoever else may be in charge of these things, has buried the Woodlot snow stake, 300cm tall, its time to work on burying the Greenroom Weather Plot stake, at 400cm tall.  This stake is right in front of the lodge.  The snow creep has bent it over a bit, so its not quite vertical anymore.  It needs another 10cm of snow to cover it.  The last dump dropped 70cm of settled snow in about a day and a half, so if the recent trend continues, that stake is a goner.  I have never seen the lodge this buried.  The snowbank on the east side

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Last week was a week of snow, wind, deep powder, avalanches and quite a few runs down the Woodlot.  We did get over for some great runs in Never Never with 70cm new snow over the old bed surfaces.  Max kept us entertained with his Jolly Jumping.  Plus we almost hit 3 mters at the Woodlot Plot, get the champagne ready....  any day now....

Thanks for the pictures Geoff.

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So, we skied down into the Woodlot today and there is 289cm on the stake.  11cm to go to bury the thing.  Its snowing like hell right now, maybe tomorrow...

This winter has been on or off.  Big dump on opening week, hardly any snow in February and now, snowing for the last two weeks, especially this week.  We have gotten a meter of settled storm snow at treeline over the week.  I think we may be getting into record snowfall territory.  I'm waiting for the HS stake in the Woodlot to get buried and it might already be there.  Have to go down and have a look.

I found this baby outside my door today.  Anyone with information please contact me.  He is quite good humoured and answers to "Max", sort of.

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We're stuck at the Abbey again!  Third time this winter.  What the....?  It must have something to do with the 265cm snowpack we have in the Woodlot.  I think Mother Nature might finally bury our HS stake down there this winter.  Only 35cm to go.  Haven't seen it happen yet, but there is always a first time.  Eileen, Tom and I haven't been stuck here for 15 years.  It was Eileen's first week at the Abbey and we were stuck for two days.  Hope it doesn't come to that.

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On Thursday we went to Never Never Basin to check out the debris we saw from the King's Backside.  The whole bowl had slid.  Lots of trees gone, the natural glading program is continuing.

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Back in the Abbey after a week at Sorcerer Lodge.  We got about 40cm at the beginning of the week at Sorcerer.  Skiing was great in the trees and we weren't very adventurous with the ski program because the avalanche hazard was high.  We went up in the alpine once even though the weather was good for it.  Getting out of Sorcerer was a chore.  We got hit with a good storm and couldn't fly until about 4:30.  Then the heli broke down and it ended up that only half of us got out.  This is a rare thing for Sorcerer.  In the meantime, Battle Abbey was stuck

Last Friday we woke up to 5cm of low density stellars.  It looked like everything was covered in little diamonds.  The forecast had called for a snowy day but it started to clear.  We went up to King's Landing and poked up above the fog.  All the peaks were showing in the sunshine.  The skiing was awesome, deep snow with 5 to 10cm of fluff on top.  We did a few in the Burnt Offerings, had lunch at the sunpit overlooking Billy Goat Bowl.  All in all, one of the better days in the mountains this winter.

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The Drought is over.  Snow started at 10am and its still snowing.  We went over to Schooner South today and Jeff took a group up Pillow Talk and up the Throne to ski the couloir next to the Crow's Nest.  If it going to snow, snow hard!

Yesterday we took advantage of the last clear day of the February Drought and went up Mount Butters.

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More party creatures from last Friday night.

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