The Laws Of Physics Prevail.
It Was Very Icy Because...
If you take a Large Conical Object and subject its Porous Snow Surface
to fairly large and long episodes of “Warm” and “Rain”, the surfaces become
Saturated. Then, if you immediately chill it with a Sub-Zero Temp and Wind...
the Surfaces become Solid, as in Frozen, Ice, because unfortunately, the Laws
Of Physics do directly apply to all situations of this Type.
In this analogy, Tremblant is the "Conical Object”, and this afternoons Open
Trail System becomes the “Ice”.
But... for reasons explained below, the worst of it is already over, and...
every day, including tomorrow morning, will see substantial Daily
improvements.
- www.tremblant360.com photo. All rights reserved.
- 12.28.14.Summit.Sector.La.Crete.c.jpg (382.89 KiB) Viewed 2469 times
so a fair amount of Traffic out too.
The “Icy” Part, was generated in too short a time for Crews to do much
with it before Opening this morning. One Groomer can cover about 4 Acres
per hour, but for much of last night the soft stayed soft so to cover 300 Acres
as it was firming up was not logistically practical. So, we had to put up with it
for today. It was Smooth Enough, just frozen.
Tonight will see the beginning of Two Important Phases:
#1) The ‘round the clock Sub-Zero Temp drops of a Cold Arctic Air Mass moving
into the Eastern Half of the Continent that will be here for quite Some Days ahead.
2) The Restoration Process of tomorrow morning will already be a big jump forward
in “User Friendly" by the All-Nighter Efforts of Mountain Crews who are familiar
with how to deal with this Phenomenon. Incrementally, the surfaces improve,
every single day.
When the Temps go down on Soft, Moisture laden Snow, the results are
predictable...
Equally, when Mountain Crews get working on Icy overnight, the results are
also predictable... Less Ice by the day, and more and more even “Shred Depth”
to help restore Carving Surfaces.
This whole process occurs frequently enough at any Ski Resort, but Tremblant
Mountain Crews are Regional Masters at restoring Surface Conditions to a high
degree on Day 1, and making great strides in Quality from then on.
What We Need To Remember:
“Icy” is way better than “Gone”, “Icy” can be Fixed up, Ground up,
Groomed Over, but “Gone” is “Gone” and no amount of wishful thinking
will put anything that is “Gone”, back.
---------------------------------------------------------------
T360 12:35 Field Reporting. Noon Update....
- www.tremblant360.com photo. All rights reserved.
- 12.28.14.Tremblant.Summit.Field.Report.Noon.Update.a.jpg (205.6 KiB) Viewed 2562 times
Hope ya got edges Folks!
-------------------- 8:33 A.M. Orig. Post -------------------
48(*) Open Trails on 4 Sides of #Tremblant that include 1 Descent Path
on the Edge and 1 Descent Path on Soleil.
With any luck... this is the last day of “warm”.
- www.tremblant360.com photo. All rights reserved.
- 12.28.14.Versant.Sud.South.Panoramic.d.jpg (348.62 KiB) Viewed 2585 times
if things were a degree or two either up or down, outcomes could be way different...
What you see above is the effect of a couple degrees C above the orig. forecast
models and for several hours longer. Fortunately, cosmetic loss of Bush/Tree
snow has much, much less to do with Packed and Groomed Open Trail Surfaces
that are all visibly in much better shape.(very odd lighting today with deep heavy
cloud and at the same time periodic splashes of Bright Sun bouncing a lot of
light around making Exposure Settings difficult for the Camera.)
At Least we are not alone, the above average temp’s experienced
right across the the North American Continent over this year’s Christmas Period
have set records in many areas and some computer generated Weather Models
have not even been able to register the Highs Graphically on Charts because
they are more than 10C above seasonal averages.
When it comes to Tremblant’s specific circumstances in this scenario, You hear us
say it with a far degree of frequency here... “Thank Goodness for “North”, as in
Latitude.”
We are totally Lucky to be nothing worse than on the edge of the Zero C, freezing
mark with temp’s mainly between 1 and 3 C, while many less fortunate to the
South have experienced Double Digit C's.
For Example... Burlington Vermont has been around +9 C, for about 36 Hours,
while “North”, here at Tremblant, the closer proximity to Zero at South Resort
Base Levels has meant that the Summit has had some Below Zero’s and the
Alpine Snow Sport Trail Surfaces have not had nearly the same Extreme Thermal
Exposure.
This is reflected in #Tremblant’s Expansion of Open Terrain during the warm spell
and the continuity of the Open Trail Count this morning at 48(*).
Here’s a Versant Soleil Section Sample, Hand Held 1000mm Telephoto in
very flat light, we hope to get there soon, but so far, it looks Wall-to-Wall White!
- www.tremblant360.com photo. All rights reserved.
- 12.28.14.Soleil.Sector.Toboggan.Mid.Point.Flat.Light.Telephoto.b.jpg (418.11 KiB) Viewed 2562 times
Today’s High Temp of +1C has already past and should be dropping, albeit slowly
to begin with, from this point on. The Mountain Open Hours should all be at South
Base, Zero C, with Moderate to brisk Westerly Winds coming up the Mountain over
McCulloch and crossing the Summit towards Lowell Thomas.
Conditions today will continue to be quite “Spring-Like”, although the cooling
trend now beginning to occur could begin to generate Icy Bits. Overnight Grooming
will have rendered out the best possible surfaces and if the “Sunny” portion of today’s
forecast comes through, the “Spring” part could stretch all the way to the Summit.
Mountain User Traffic Factors remain to be seen and we think are a bit un-predictable
because Regional Urban Holiday Participants looking at green yards down in the
city, tend to think the Skiing/Boarding may be not so good. Experienced, Dedicated
Regional Tremblant Fans will know that is not the case, so the Jury is Out on crowds
today.
We recommend eating early, Skiing/Boarding through the common Lunch hour,
if possible, and/or head for Versant Nord after 1:30 or so because the North Side
tends to have dwindling Traffic on Sunday Afternoons as People seem to think
it’s better to try to beat Highway Traffic back to whatever City/Town they come from.
This does not always happen, but it is an Identifiable Behaviour some Sundays
when at shortly after 2:00 P.M., the Nord, North, Lift Lines seem to just fade away...
48(*) Open Trails on the Archival Copy of Official Open Trails,
Grooming, Snowmaking and Lift Status for December 28, 2014,
Courtesy of Tremblant.ca
scroll ----->>> for complete data display.
- Archival Copy of Official Open Trails, Grooming, Snowmaking and Lift Status for December 28, 2014, Courtesy of Tremblant.ca
- Screen Shot 2014-12-28 at 11.49.34 AM.jpg (342.25 KiB) Viewed 2586 times
Page under Family Christmas Activities “As Time Permits" construction...
Links and not-so-fine print:
http://www.tremblant.ca
http://www.tremblant.ca/mountain/winter ... port-e.htm
(*)
Understanding Trail Counts - http://alturl.com/n54py http://www.tremblant.ca/mountain/trailmap-e.htm
http://www.tremblant.ca/galleries/webcams/index-e.htm
http://translate.google.com/translate_t ... =fr&tl=en#
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/CAQC0360
Forum Index: http://alturl.com/r4cco
Bring Back The Memories... 
Research Future Visits... If you would like to look up dates you visited Tremblant, or you
want to research days/weeks/months to visit, you can sample what
they look like historically, month by month, year by year.
GoTo: Archive, Search Reports by Date: Index: http://tinyurl.com/yktelmu
When reviewing dates from any of the past, numbered, archived pages,
you can use the "Previous Topic" or "Next Topic" buttons, located
screen far right, in upper date/message bar to scroll through sequential
dates, or use your browsers "back" button to stay on the selected index
page for non-sequential date reviews in either forward or reverse order.
There are approximately 6, 25 day Index pages per season.
(
If you "Bookmark" the link above, it will always take you to theFirst index page with the latest posts. That gives you an immediate,
current to 25 day past, review scroll of Winter Alpine Conditions by
consecutive date.)
.