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Anonymous
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Yesterday E and I went to the 'bush to get in some turns while she has time off. It's been snowing for the past two days here in the Burlington area, however, it's been so light (in intensity) that it's only accumulated to about 2 inches or so. The snow has seemed to come from a combination of a very weak low pressure system that passed through the great lakes, and small bits of energy that are coming from a storm up near Newfoundland. Whatever the case, it 's snowing with temperatures in the single digits and low teens, so this snow is incredibly dry. The latest report from Burlington was 0.06 inches of liquid precipitation forming 2.1 inches of snow. That's 35:1 snow to water, or slightly less than 3% water content. Pretty amazing stuff; you can just about look at it wrong and it flies away. It doesn't really do anything for the skiing, but it's fun to see. <BR> <BR>On to the conditions at the 'bush: We spent the morning on the snowboards in the Village Double / Gatehouse / Spring Fling areas. Conditions ranged from mostly packed powder to some areas of nasty ice that are likely left over from the rain event a couple of weeks ago. On our first couple of runs we visited the beginner's Poma and found perfect snow, but the steeper trails naturally had more icy spots. In the afternoon we switched to the skis and explored some woods. Fortunately, there have been no temps above freezing for quite a while so the only enemies of the snow were basically wind and time. Near the edges of the trails, the snow had been wind blasted enough to form a 2 inch wind crust below the last few inches of new snow. This made the skiing difficult at times in this zone. Once you got farther into the woods, you could find nice unadulterated powder, but you still had to watch out for coverage. Many obstacles are out and not yet covered. We hit woods off of Birch Run, Hot Shot and Slowpoke. Many lines weren't as long and uninterrupted yet as they can be, but we found some good sections. That's all for now, I hope everyone can get out and enjoy the nor'easter that's on the way. Somebody's going to get hit pretty hard, let's hope the mountains (and not just the cities) can get in on it.