4/9/2018 Stevens Pass Concrete

What started off as being fun Cascade concrete to ski on became overly sticky and sketch to want to be able to pick up any kind of speed. I've always asked how is that sometimes when it is warm the snow conditions can be fast, and other times the snow can be sticky as hell.

I've always asked how is that sometimes when it is warm the snow conditions can be fast, and other times the snow can be sticky as hell.

Freeze-thaw cycles metamorphosize the at- and near-surface snow into a granular form via rounding (sintering) of the crystals. As the temperatures rise the edges melt and liquid water flows between the increasingly-rounded grains which then freezes overnight and the process repeats again the following day. This creates the "corn" snow we know and love. If it hasn't frozen overnight, expect glop the next day and every day until it does (although sometimes rain enters the picture and affects the snow in such a way to temporarily create granular conditions, colloquially known as "raincorn").

Great post....thanks pipedream...just got done doing a spring wax job...☺

I will be expecting rain corn tomorrow.

You know what they say, FA.

"When it rains it corns!"

So a few years ago Whistler had a big early season snowpack and I happened to be there during a terrible Pinapple Express that had the top shit down due to heavy snow and the mid to bottom heavy rain. I needed to build early season leg strength so I just kept at it and for a couple of days the snow was really good and fast. Rain Corn?

Fortunately, previously  skied slopes yesterday at Alpental seemed to have just enough of the  underlying corn-ish snow mixed in yesterday  to make for some fun  and fairly fast skiing. And even the  funky unskied recently fallen mank had a little  crust on it which seemed to help  in  terms of speed  if not turning quality.