2013 SEASON WRAP – The good, bad and the ugly
The wonders of modern snowmaking ensured most resorts had some skiing on opening weekend, Mt Buller Image:: Tony Harrington
Mountainwatch | Reggae Elliss
Given that this season is going to be remembered as one of the worst ever, it’s kind of ironic that we got 10-15cm of fresh snow at Perisher yesterday. It is October 4 and while all of the other resorts in Australia are now closed, Perisher will have lifts open on Front Valley and Eyre t-bar on Mount Perisher until Monday Oct 7.
Not a bad effort considering the up and down winter, and the fact it opened the first lift on Front Valley on June 8, the first day of the “official” day of the season. But what to make of this season? While there’s no doubt it won’t be remembered fondly, there was also quite a few good days, including some that were up there with “as good as it gets”.
July 23 in Falls Creek has to be up there as one of the best days of the year Image:: Falls Creek/Hocking
Having said that, one thing about this season is it was one where you definitely had to be onto it to score the best days. Looking back through the snow reports for Thredbo and Perisher, I was surprised to see there were 22 days when you could score fresh tracks, days where we had at least 10cm of fresh snow. I was also surprised to see some of the deeper days were in June and early July with a three-day period from July 5-7 having 50cm of fresh snow and good boot-deep light powder.
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The other memorable periods were the season-saving 70cm we received from July 20-22, then a good run of dry snow and windblown from August 8-15 and then another burst from August 16-23 where the NSW resorts ended up getting 95cm!
If you didn’t score a pow day this year, then by now you’re probably pretty jealous Image:: Cuff/Thredbo
The days that stood out as the best days of the season were all in August – the 13th, 20th and 22nd days to remember. Of course, the conditions during some of those storms weren’t easy, with poor visibility and very strong winds making it hard going, and some people would have sat inside waiting for the weather to clear, but if you’re not scared of some wild weather the rewards were there with some epic, dry pow.
During this period the resorts in the main range fared better, with Buller, Baw Baw and Selwyn missing out on a lot of the snow, which resulted in Baw Baw and Selwyn not making it through the first week in September. The problem with this winter was all the rain events in between the colder snow storms, a couple of warm fronts dropped over 70ml of rain in 48 hours and the marginal early season snowmaking conditions which meant we always had a fragile base.
The Efterski festival kept the Thredbo crowd entertained, Gus Kenworthy Image:: Efterski
Given most resorts were barely open on July 19 with hardly any cover at all, it’s not surprising we lost the base so quickly when the warm weather hit in the last week of August.
According to Snowy Hydro’s measurement at Spencers Creek – between Perisher and Charlotte Pass – the deepest the snow got was on August 29 – 183cm at Spencer’s Creek. After a week of summer-like temps – it was +7 at the top of Thredbo at 6am on September 3 – it came in on September 6 at 144cm and two weeks later was 85cm.
We ended up having one or two days over the past three weeks with more than 10cm of fresh snow which has been fun, but overall the main problem with this winter was how short it was, illustrated by the fact most resorts only had all lifts operating for four to five weeks.
The best thing about a bad season – we’re really clutching at straws – is that when it does snow, everyone is even more stoked Image:: Hocking/Falls
It’s OK for those of us who live here to say there were plenty of good days skiing, but unless you can drop everything and head to the mountains whenever a good front is about to hit, it was luck of the draw. Now we all remember last winter as one of the best and here’s how I closed last year’s season wrap: “Winter 2012 will go down as one of the best ever, but it makes me worry about 2013. We can’t get two in a row …can we?”
So, on that note, we should be optimistic about 2014. We can’t get two in a row … can we?
