Australian Snowstorm Journal & Gallery – Big snow dumps

All Photos Tony Harrington at Mt Buller Resort, Victoria

NSW with Reggae Ellis

From Reggae’s Balcony in Thredbo on Friday July

There has been some sensational days over the past week, including an incredible morning last Thursday when the NSW resorts had 25 -30cms overnight and with the morning temperature hovering around -4, the snow was light and dry. In Thredbo there was a long line for first chair on the Kossie express and the Bluff, Cannonball and Snowgums trees were as good as they get, but werer tracked out very fast. A few lucky people rode up Gunbarrell early and then headed straight for the Cruiser and hooked into the Powder Bowl and Boundary Rider for a few runs in deep untracked snow before the crowds hit. A combination of the school holidays and the sydney Zone Interschools also made Thursday one of the busiest mid-week days Thredbo has ever had, with long waits on all lifts by 10.30am. The smart people headed out of the resort, with some amazing snow within easy access, including some of The steeper hidden lines on the resorts’ boundary

For many Friday and Saturday were even better, particularly in the afternoon, thanks to a strong west/northwest wind blowing in that famous light dry windblown powder, filling in your tracks after each turn. The Bluff into Cannonball, Little Beauty, Sponars Gully, Merritts Falls and Waimea were epic, plenty of massive rooster tails thrown up by fast turns.

At Perisher the usual crew headed for Mount Perisher on Thursday morning, with the t-bars being the centre of attention, and North Perisher held some beautiful boot deep powder. Once those areas were tracked out, Boen Ferguson and Charlie Timmins found some good stashed in the trees at Guthega and around Kamikazee and Rock Garden at Blue Cow. That area was also the pick over the next couple of days, the west/northwesterly blowing in some nice drifts of windblown powder, great for uncrowded fresh turns while the masses stayed on the groomed runs.

Since the snow falls on Wednesday there have been some very cold nights, down to -10 across the mountains on Thursday night, which has kept the snow quality light and dry. The cold nights have also been great for snowmaking and the snowmakers have been

It has been an awesome few days – for that matter it has been pretty damn good for the past few weeks.

Victoria With Steve Lee

The past week has been the best of the season so far with a good dump of snow just prior to the weekend and blue bird days it got all the crew out for face shots and some good airs. The Summit chair with plenty of steeps like Cabbage Patch was in fine form and all the big rocks were tested offering nice soft landings. Crew like Tom Costa were showing some big mountain free ride form shooting a few big drops switch.

Inter Poma was still out on the big powder day of Thursday so the lap time for the Maze were long, but with such good fall line runs still worth it. The air stayed cold the snow stayed dry and Falls Creek was about as good as it gets. The Thursday “Night spectacular” on the summit had all the usual flare, me busting out the old 88 Olympic Spyder race suit for a fast one to open the show and get the crown revved up. The highlight of the night though was the Aussie Para Olympic team who were well into a two week training camp wow’d the crowd with some fast precision skiing. Come Friday we saw another stellar one with some left over freshies and the groomers were outstanding. To everyone’s surprise the Inter Poma opened, only a handful of happy campers including myself made the most of this unknown resource for the first hour or so with many laps in a short amount of time. Zipper was ripper, absolutely buffed and empty, something about ripping first tracks down perfect corduroy that still gets my blood pumping.

A stellar week just gone, the base is now sitting just shy of 100cm and August is looking good.