Needless to say, the last storm drastically improved the conditions in the snowies! Grooming out of Greenrock has not started yet but there is plenty of snow on the shoulder up until the road closure sign so grooming should start soon.
The road is mostly covered with some dry patches where there is a lot of wind. These areas will likely not have snow on them until grooming begins and packs a base down. The road is ridable at regular speeds up and over Libby flats but there are a couple dry spots on Libby flats until grooming stats. The east face still needs a bit more snow but with some careful navigation avoiding thin spots, the east face is ridable off trail.
We continued over Libby flats where the snow started to get extremely deep around lake Marie. Lake Marie hill was climbable but it was difficult to say the least. We played in this area but the snow was so deep that climbing any sort of hill was extremely difficult even for the turbos in the group.
We continued down 130 to the intersection with N and proceed south off highway 130 towards the Nelson Waterfall area. This area had some amazing snow but once again, extremely deep. To climb the trees just south of the highway 130 / N intersection took constant full throttle to stay moving. There were times we were running full throttle through the trees for multiple minutes to keep moving. The waterfall was untouched but the snow was way too deep to climb it.
We decided to boondock North towards the Quealy hut and continued to find epically deep untracked snow. We took a quick break at Quealy then we headed southeast from Quealy and played in the meadows and trees which continued to be great conditions. Around 3pm, we started to head west on NO towards widow maker with the intent of going through the gap. Widow maker is starting to fill in well and is climbable (if you choose) and the rollercoaster is 95% filled in and ridable. The gap is crossable but be careful to follow the track with good snow.
In summary – The snowies are open for riding! All lakes are frozen solid, blow holes are minimal and landmines are beginning to diminish. We did hit a couple minor things but for the most part, coverage and base is good for this time of year. If you haven’t been out yet this year, now is the time to start!