Conditions Report
Today was a great day at Catedral ski resort in Bariloche, Argentina. The snow was about as good as it gets here. It snowed hard and blew hard yesterday leaving us with up to two feet of semi dense, wind-pressed snow. The kind of snow you can open it up in, but can still speed check in anytime. It was also good for hucking provided you had a steep landing. It didn’t give much on flat landings…
I started the day with two laps on the mellow terrain Punta Nevada chair because the snow was just so fun to ski. That progressed into three hiking laps up Nubes which had incredible, fast snow.
From Nubes, straight to La Laguna and The Playground. The Playground is like I’ve never seen it. The features are very featureful. The previous storm rolled in with rain which pressed the snow down and built up ice bulges on the rocks. Yesterday’s storm put down a soft layer of snow, covered up most of the Death Cookies of Unusual Size, and left the rocks with their ice bulges. This added up to the rocks sticking out in very interesting ways making hucking around a blast.
Avalanches: Catedral just got permits for using avalanche bombs after a 2.5 year permitting battle. They bombed Nubes and some other locations. Does this mean those zone were safe? No. They bombed very little. When I did compression tests near the top of Nubes, I found a weak layer in the new snow about 1 foot down. It was moderately reactive somewhere near the borderline of go or no go. I didn’t see any evidence of avalanches from yesterday’s storm and saw no cracks today.
At the bottom of The Playground a warm fog came in this afternoon. This kind of fog here sticks to the snow and makes it sticky. The lower part of The Playgroud suffered from this today in the pm.
The Nubes chair also opened today at about 1:30pm.
Today was a great day at Catedral. Tomorrow should be a great day in the backcountry.
The forecast is showing a big warm up on Friday with a bit of snow Friday night:
PHOTO TOUR:
Fabulous ‘Helmet Camming’!
Was that the Fo Fighters on the box?
Killer-Combo.
101 in the Central Valley today, you’re truly a world away.
MB
Yo, Mota.
Thanks, bro. We’re bros, right? Yeah, Foo fighters. Been listening to them everyday skiing here. Kind of the perfect fit for the skiing here. CA Hwy 101 and it’s probably about 101 degrees, too, huh? No worries, you’ve got the Delta right there. thanks.
Wow Miles, keep these posts coming! I’m heading down in two weeks and this is definitely getting the stoke high. I’m glad to hear the rain from a few days ago didn’t lead to too reactive of a layer. So excited
Stoked to getcha stoked. It’s good here right now. Today was also good. The wind buffed out Nubes and the chair opened early. La Laguna was good. Gonna do a tour tomorrow, which I hope will also be good.
These are awesome reports Miles. Keep up the good work!
Thanks, Grant. Will do.
Great job Miles. Our crew of 6 had a special day also hiking Nubes, Playground and Zona Lomo. Snow up high stayed cold all day. Great resort. Keep up the great reporting.