Day 7 - Brutal

Woken up by the radio this morning telling me that the temp was up at a balmy -21, it then spoilt it by giving a wind chill warning and as a result a frostbite warning on any skin exposed for more than 5 minutes. The reason for this is that we are expecting a weather event at the weekend and these are always preceded by some cold damp winds. As always no one knows quite how much snow we will get or where but this is a particularly strange situation in that the temps usually rise quite sharply during the weather event and this time they are forecast to stay at daytime highs of -15 or there abouts - who knows what we have in store.

Arrived at the hill and as there didn't seem to be much wind decided to take a quick run up the old side then go over to the new. My mind was changed about half way up the Bear Chair when the wind cut in with the most brutal arctic effect I have ever felt. This called for a change of plan.

A good thing about the old side is that it is low and if you stick to the Boomerang chair you are sheltered from the wind. Being low down the temps aren't so bad and you are in the trees giving more shelter and some perspective in the flat light which resulted from the blowing snow. We cycled Boomerang and Haul Back all morning just taking different routes off the ridge line.

There had been more grooming and now pretty well every run in Lizard and Cedar bowls are groomed. There had been a little blow in wind grooming (very little) but for the most part the ungroomed remained heavy and tracked. Still looking for new ways down through the alders but in the main what looks good in between the alder growth is wind crust.

After lunch consider the new side but a quick trip up the old into even colder winds knocked that on the head. Spent the afternoon just like the morning then headed to the Griz for a beer. Picked up a couple of Dutch borders hitching back from the hill, they had been up the new side once and confirmed it was super butal and they had bailed straight away.

Got an email from a buddy in the UK this morning that made me think ( you Tom). He is getting ready for the season and is off down the dry ski slope to get some practice. I thought, here we are thinking we haven't got the greatest skiing and yet we could ( if we wanted) ski mile after mile of well groomed piste through beautiful scenery and interesting terrain. Back in the the UK there are thousands of skiers having to make do with a couple of hundred metres of toothbrush skiing - perhaps we should count our blessings.

Beer in the hot tub and an early night I think.