It had been a dry and unseasonably mild first few months in Avon. With record levels of lack of snow counting back to the existence of the Vail Valley Resorts, aswell on the back of the worst season ever of 2011-12, it was a grim and dreary outlook for the season. The mood about town was of worry and frustration of a potentially worse season than that of last year, and with day after day of mild temps and sunshine there seemed to be no chance of precipitation on the horizon. All the resorts by this stage were open, but functioning only on man made snow and limited to one or two runs open. This blew down onto tourist numbers with the place just being dead, hotels basically empty and days where I might only send out a handful of rentals. On the back of last season, nobody was heading out here until the snow dramatically improved. And then .....
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| Its snowing |
From skeptical outlooks all of a sudden we were being peltered by snow storm after snow storm. early december till christmas a deluge of snow was being accumulated on the mountains. Corrolating over to snowboarding this mean serious patients and restraint was needed as the fresh fluffy dusting of snow covered a bare rocky mountain surface below. But slowly over the weeks the ski patrol dropped the ropes openning access to the entire mountian and with each oppening a plethora of powder runs of unimaginable propertions were explored and exploited. Best thing yet is only december we still have months more snowboarding and skiing ahead of us.
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| Stoked for the powder!!! |
Only trouble now is its dried up again. After dealing with temperatures of unimaginable proportions, ranging from daily highs of -10 degrees C to lows of -30 C we were in temperature ranges too cold for snow. Three weeks straight we didn't even get near getting out of below zero temperatures. Now it finally warmed up and it feels like were in the tropics. It been getting to 1 or 2 degrees C around midday and only down to -8 C at night. But still, no snow is in sight!
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| Gore Range Mountains |
But still its can't be a bad day when that is the view we get to look at during a mornings riding down the valley in Vail before heading off to work for the evening. Even if the snow was a bit icy that morning.
