Ski conditions definition...

Hi guys

can you tell what it means all those snow conditions in a snow report. i.e. Packed powder, Spring skiing...etc

Thanks

packed powder - groomed ice
spring conditions - dirty slush
early season conditions - clean slush with rocks sticking out

At least that's what they seem to mean around here :lol:

Trencher

Thats probably closer to the truth in some resorts, but it really is:

Packed snow = hard snow with little top surface
Fresh powder = new snow falls leaving lots of soft fluffy stuff about, especially off piste
Groomed pistes = no prizes for guessing, it means nicely machine groomed snow after a night of work by the pistey bashers, which may be a little hard and noisy in the morning if you rattle your skis over the courduroy first thing
Spring conditions = icy in the morning after an overnight freeze, and soft in the afternoons once the sun starts to melt it. Alternatively, when I was in Verbier, it means fresh snow overnight which stayed in superb condition all day, but dont expect the lower runs below the freezing line to hold up
Corn snow = you can see the crops growing through the snow its so warm )

Packed Powder is dry snow that's packed by machine or skiers, not loose and your skis wouldn't break through, if you took them off then your boots would sink a little, you'd get resistance from a pole plant.

Spring snow or corn snow is large loose granules, these have frozen together overnight and then thawed during the day. They'll be cold enough to have adhesion and you'd get resistance from a pole plant and neither boots nor skis would sink. This is a developmental phase and as adhesion fails there's a transition to loose granular snow (LGS) as the freeze thaw cycle becomes established. This stuff (LGS) is hard to ski, you'll get little resistance on a pole plant and skis and boot would sink into the surface.

Whether people writing ski reports actually really understand and use the correct terms is questionable though, it's an amateurish affair at times and I doubt some of them understand the terms they're using.

ise wrote:
Whether people writing ski reports actually really understand and use the correct terms is questionable though, it's an amateurish affair at times and I doubt some of them understand the terms they're using.

It guess it wouldn't be great advertising to give real snow reports at times, so best to be vague all the time.

Does anyone know if resorts are adding stuff to artificial snow in Europe?
It makes a huge difference to how the snow changes during thaw freeze cycles. I know that my local hill use a bacteria treatment. I actually don't like too much real snow on my local hill as it ices up more easily and doesn't come back as well as the artificial stuff.

Answered my own question with google and it seems they do. Apparently there are concerns for alpine plants affected by the treatments.


Trencher

Trencher wrote:

ise wrote:
Whether people writing ski reports actually really understand and use the correct terms is questionable though, it's an amateurish affair at times and I doubt some of them understand the terms they're using.

It guess it wouldn't be great advertising to give real snow reports at times, so best to be vague all the time.

Does anyone know if resorts are adding stuff to artificial snow in Europe?
It makes a huge difference to how the snow changes during thaw freeze cycles. I know that my local hill use a bacteria treatment. I actually don't like too much real snow on my local hill as it ices up more easily and doesn't come back as well as the artificial stuff.

Answered my own question with google and it seems they do. Apparently there are concerns for alpine plants affected by the treatments.


Trencher

I'm surprised by that, what links did you find?

This was the first I found

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B7GVV-4DS33Y7-25&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=c3ed1ad13c3b3a4b287deef76fc168e2

Then on an additive manufacturers web site, they say that they extracted the useful protein from the bacteria and used that as it had no enviromental impact.

http://www.johnsoncontrols.com/publish/us/en/products/building_efficiency/products/snowmaking/snomax/is_snomax_safe.html

also


http://www.cemagref.fr/Informations/Presse/InfMediaEV/infomedia62EV/EVim62recherche.htm

The additives make a great difference. Here in the midwest where we rely on artificial snow a lot, it is noticable which ski hills use additives and which don't.

Trencher

Interesting, I knew that chemicals weren't added any longer but I'd not really seen much about this at all. I'm not even sure how it's done, the local cannons seem plumbed straight into the capture pools so what I thought were filters must include something to add these as well.