Mother Nature Needs to Cooperate

The weather this winter has been a bit on the crazy side. We had very cold weather in Virginia over Christmas, unusually cold weather but it didn't bring any snow with it. It was good for snowmaking at Massanutten. They built a new retaining pond for snowmaking (and watering the golf courses) and thought they'd save some water for when it was cold. Only problem was that the levels were low enough that the water froze. No snowmaking!

It had been very cold in Maine as well but then it warmed up. It was very warm when we got up here Thursday night. Yesterday was still warm and they said a cold front was going to come through and we'd go into the deep freeze again. I think the front must have moved slower than they thought it was because it was still above freezing when we left this morning. Yesterday was rainy and foggy, especially over the rivers. Today it started off raining, then we went through about five minutes of freezing rain before it turned to sleet. On the drive up to Sugarloaf this morning we started off with a temperature about 35* and rain but as we got closer to the Loaf it got colder and the sleet did turn to snow. I'm not sure how much we got since the wind was also blowing but maybe an inch or two. The temperatures also dropped to 19* by the time we left in the afternoon.

So the crazy rain then cold and snow have left the race schedule in tatters. We got a message on the way up that there would be no racing today. I overheard a Sugarloaf employee saying that they had been out since 3am cleaning the ice off the lift chairs and weren't nearly done and this was at 8:00. Today instead of having time trials and race 1 they did practice (a very shortened one to make up for yesterday) and then time trials. Tomorrow they'll do both races.

This morning besides waiting for lift chairs to get cleaned off they were waiting for the temperatures to drop a bit so the snow would firm up some. From all the rain yesterday the snow was very soft and probably a tad on the unsafe side. I got a look up the mountain as we were leaving and there were big sheets of ice. Days like yesterday do a lot of damage to the snow.

Here's to a good race day tomorrow.