Excellent Cover

4

AM - 1oC at the Car Park, Light Wind and Broken Cloud giving some blue sky on the Mountain.
PM - 3oC at the Car Park, Strengthening to Strong Wind, dense cloud cover on the Mountain, giving some light snow.

As per the various website forecasts.

'POW' - der Day No.3 Nearly!!

The legend that is Glencoe continues!

Where to start?

After the amazing POW days on Monday and Friday last week (see my previous reports from 16th and 20th) and following the serious storms earlier this week, would the record snow falls (estimated at 50-80cm) produce a POW Wednesday?

Well the answer was sort of!

While driving up to the resort from the south it was obvious that significant snow had fallen over the last few days as forecast, which provided the whole mountain with a fresh feel from the car park up to the summit.

It was back to normal with the usual mid-week crowds (and Prices - ?25), with the car park only 1/2 full at 9am, when I went up the hill.

We were warned at the ticket office that only the Access Chairlift and Plateau Poma were running first thing, while the 'Coe Crew' worked on the mid/top mountain lifts.

So in the early morning blue sky everyone started to lap the Red and Black Access Runs from the chairlift. The Red run had quite uneven snow lying in it, but the more even snow levels on the Black run actually made it easier to ski than the Red run. From the chairlift you could watch all the action below - there were some really excellent boarders/skiers at Glencoe today!

After three laps on the Access Runs, the Cliffhanger and Wall lifts opened at approx 10.30am and everyone moved up to the mid mountain area.

Today the snow was different to last week. Although a lot of fresh snow had fallen, it was more compacted by the storm force winds. This gave a great skiing surface, but not the depth of powder that was experienced last week.

I used my ski pole to take some rough snow depth measurements.

The mid mountain was loaded, with 20/30cm in the Wall (Red) and Canyon (Red), and about 10/20cm on the run down Old Mugs (Green).

The snow was dry and grippy under your skis giving 'Hero' conditions, helping the skis on every turn. However, with so many skiers on the mid mountain areas, the snow got chopped up very quickly.

At approx 12.30pm the Summit T-bar opened and everyone moved up to the top of the mountain.

The Main Basin (Blue) had about 20/30cm in it and Happy Valley (Blue) had about 10/20cm in it. No Pisten Bully today, just wind packed soft fresh snow. Again, I thought the Happy Valley was carving better than the Main Basin, because it had slightly less snow depth, but both runs provided outstanding skiing.

Unfortunately, as forecast the wind strengthened in the afternoon, it started to snow and the clouds came down. So although the snow was great at the top of the mountain, the weather was not helping the skiing experience.

I tried the Spring Run a couple of times, which had approx 30/40cm of snow in it. More than last week. Although it was great skiing, the traverse across to the runs entrance was very exposed to the wind and limited the number of people going over.

The Ski Patrol had checked the East Ridge and Fly Paper, but had assessed the avalanche risk too high to open.

However, I did sneak over via the 'Spring Paper' to have a look at the East Ridge/Fly Paper corrie from below. There was over 50cm of snow in there - loaded. Absolutely amazing snow conditions.

All in, it was worth coming up during the one day 'weather window' this week to get some skiing done.

JMAC