Conditions Report
Weather
this report is for yesterday, August 16th, 2013
Catedral ski resort in Bariloche, Argentina was closed on Wednesday and Thursday due to extremely high winds and a decent storm. The snow level was at about 1,500 meters (about the top of the Sextuple) which wasn’t ideal for the lower mountain, but the upper mountain was great.
Well, not everywhere on the upper mountain was great, but everywhere was at least good. We hiked and skied Nubes first thing and it had fun wind-pressed snow that was punchy in spots and about 6 inches deep. The run was fun and you could go full speed on that pressed snow.
We then went straight to La Laguna and the snow was the same there: pressed, dense, about 6 inches deep. On our way out of Laguna we cut into the Playground and voilá, there was great snow. We milked a few turns and small drops and vowed to come back. The snow was softer, less dense, and about 16 inches deep. The Playground was a playground.
We hiked back around to the top of the Playground and got one top to bottom. We found great conditions in all corners of the Playground. The wind had blown the snow in there and pressed it everywhere else. The trees at the bottom of the Playground were the only trees on the mountain with snow in them.
We ended up doing 3 laps in the Playground and it was a hoot. So many fun natural features and cliffs to jumps off. We found a rock that had a perfect natural lip and the boys got front flips, backflips, flat 3s, and 3s going off it. Zero penalty landings in perfect huck snow aided courage exponentially.
It did get damn hot yesterday. We were hiking in T-shirts and sweating. The snow in the Playground got cooked, but stayed fun, but will likely be hideous today. Up high, though, that wind pressed snow may have resisted the cooking a bit more.
It doesn’t really matter too much either way. A refresher storm is rolling in right now with about 4 inches forecasted. It’ll end up being more.
All in all, yesterday was the best day of the year here at Catedral as far as I’m concerned. It was just fun skiing, plain and simple. The Catalon, Aussie, Colorado, Argie company didn’t hurt either.
CATEDRAL FORECAST:
More Snow Reports and News from South America Here:
SnowBrains South America
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PHOTO TOUR:
Siiiick boys very jealous
Laguna lookin’ prime.
happy fun time