It has been all or nothing this year. Deep snow or no snow. We couldn’t buy a snowflake early in the season. Ok…maybe we COULD buy a snowflake, but choose not to make snow at Monarch. It’s like the difference between a snow cone and soft serve ice cream. It may take a little longer sometimes, but it’s simply better to wait for the soft serve. Between Nov 12th and Dec 6th we received just a meager 4″ of snow. Then we received 21″ in 12 days. This event was followed by a week of dry weather before the onslaught of the Christmas storm that brought 65″ of snow between Dec 24th and Jan 2nd. We also experienced 16 days in Dec without any reported snowfall. January brought modest snowfall with 42″ for the month. However, 30″ of this fell during three independent days. Jan also had a whopping 23 days with no reportable snowfall and a lot of bluebird days. February was also light for what we typically see for the month. We only reported 29″ for the month with 18″ of this total falling between Feb 22nd-26th. Again, we made it through 19 days of no reportable snowfall during the month. March is off to a good start with 20″ in the first 9 days with more on the way. Looking at the data would make me think that it has been a tough year. However, the reality has been that the coverage and skiing quality has remained extremely high since Christmas. This has even been the case during those long dry stretches and days without reportable snow. I guess it just goes to show that all natural snowfall is the best. It remains soft and carvable even during a dry period. Besides, why eat a snow cone when you can have soft serve?