What went from a marginal snow season is now back to close to normal or above normal snowpack. Southwest Colorado and northern New Mexico have received feet of snow in the past couple of weeks making up for poor early season snowfall. The central and northern Colorado areas are doing well and are ahead of normal snow pack. It all sets up well for the upcoming spring break weeks.

The weather pattern for this season has been the first 2 weeks of the month dry and warm and then the last 2 weeks snowy and cold. So, there is the forecast for the rest of March. We’ll see if it pans out.

Continuing on the spring theme, below are spring skiing tips and suggestions:

Spring Skiing tips: Sunny warm days and cold nights mean the snow ‘freezes’ overnight and melts and softens during the day. Many times you’ll experience hard pack conditions (‘crunch’) early in the day and wet snow (‘mush’) late in the day. Early in the day it’s best to look for trails that are in the sunshine which will soften up first. Later in the day those trails in the sun early will get too soft and wet, so midday and later look for trails with other sun exposures which soften up later but don’t get as ‘mushy’ in the afternoon. Another option is trails that are out of the sun all day long don’t melt much and the conditions can stay more consistent all day long. Basically look at the sun exposure of a ski area’s trails. Many areas have trails that face different directions and the trick is to figure out where to go during different parts of the day to get the best conditions. With spring skiing it’s also best to have either sunny warm days or at least 4-6” of new snow. Cloudy cold days don’t allow the snow to soften up so they tend to provide the worst snow conditions.

Leader Tip: Not much of a rush to get skiing on those ‘crunchy’ spring skiing mornings (unless there is 4 6” new snow). When the snow is hard early in the day more injuries will occur when people fall. Starting a little later and skiing until late in the day tends to be a good plan for spring skiing.