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Lots of Summer Snow
Saturday, December 04, 1999

Newcomb

The Team's Call from Antarctica
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Hi Mountain Zone, it's Mark Newcomb with another dispatch from Camp II on Vinson. It's about 2:30pm and we're just finishing breakfast with our wacky schedule. It's a brief lull in the weather right now, but we have had snow for almost 48 hours, with accumulations up to 30 centimeters, or about a foot. Dave Hahn, up at Camp III, claims he's never seen so much snow on Vinson over the course of an entire summer.

So we're lucky enough in some ways to get all this powder, but in other ways it's keeping us trapped here for a little while and we're a little bit concerned about avalanche hazard up higher on the mountain. It's light density blower powder that would make Utah powder look like Sierra cement, we hope to get some turns in it right now.

Amazingly there has been no wind here at Camp II, so the new snow has covered everything in a even, pristine layer of fluff. Wade McKoy reminded us that today is opening day at our home ski area, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. We hope all our friends back home are enjoying snow like we have here.

Fortunately temps are balmy, hovering in the 10 degree to 15 degree Fahrenheit range. That allows us to hang outside from time to time, cook, screw up, get some fresh air, it's a veritable heat wave. Hopefully today we'll get off, have a look around and crank some turns in the fresh snow. We'll get back to you later, this is Mark Newcomb signing off. No messages for Mark Sicola.

— Mark Newcomb, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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