If you have been around The Basin in the Spring, you might have noticed that we push a lot of snow around. We do that for a couple reasons. One reason is to make snow last longer in a certain area. Pretty simply, deeper snow takes longer to melt. To preserve a key area, we may pile the snow deeper there so it is skiable longer. The other reason is to manage Spring runoff as the snow starts to melt. In the picture below you can see we have consolidated snow on the bottom of Wrangler. Once the snowmelt begins, the area in this picture captures a lot of water that melts from Wrangler, Sundance and High Noon. There are water bars on these trails that carry water off the trails. The snow work opens some of those water bars, keeps the water flowing which prevents water from pooling on the Lower Mountain and keeps the base area skiable for a longer time.
