20th March

Day 88 and the first day of spring. Quick apology for the rather brief remarks on yesterday's blog, I spent some time crafting a very erudite post only to lose it into hyperspace before I could post it so what you got was a brief recall of what I could remember.
As befits the first day of spring the forecast was for temps of +5 on the hill with a chance of rain showers. In the event the high at the base got to +12 with +6 even at quite high elevations. Seeing how things were developing we hit the new side early with a view to skiing some of the high altitude snow before the warmth did too much damage. Managed to get Anaconda/Bootleg, Mitchys, Surprise trees/Diamond Back and a rather nice run through the trees from the split in Skydive and Decline all in before it got too mushy. Last run before lunch was down Stag Leap which was just about ok at the top but at the bottom where it had been soft snow it turned to elephant snot and it was touch and go to keep the skis moving even on the steeper pitches.
After a much needed rest at lunch I hit the old side to see if it was any better - it wasn't, it was worse. With the whole hill becoming a rather unstable mush of melted snow the best places to ski were what had previously been high traffic areas, anything that had old fresh snow on was just hard work. Nice skiing in Boomerang, Kangaroo and Buckshot was the order of the day.
About 3 it started to rain so it was time to head high again into White Pass to get above the rain line. You could just about do that half way up the White Pass chair but the snow was very wet and the viz at the top was so bad you could hardly see your skis. I took this as sign that the day was over and had a last run down Skydive which was so heavy I had to stop 3 times on the way down to get my breath,
A few beers in the Griz soon restored me although if tomorrows forecast of warm and rain comes true it will be a half day at best just to check out that there is nothing up there worth missing. As I sit here typing it is light rain with a temp of +5 on the deck so for the next few days at least it looks like a pretty bloody time on the hill.