Day 41 What a bloody mess

And for a change what I am talking about in the heading is the state of the hill and not RCR's latest effort in customer relations.

Actually it started pretty well, the temps rose so that it was about +5 at the bottom of the hill and zero/+1 at the top. Ther was no precip until about 1 o'clock so in the morning we were just skiing what basically was an early introduction to Spring sking. For obvious reasons we went as high as possible into White Pass and stayed there dropping down through Ananconda and Cougar Glades a few times when the temptation got too much.

No point in going over all the runs off the New side as they haven't changed in the last few days but the conditions had. Even up top the snow was going soft so that at best you were sking very soft blow in and as you got lower you skied mulch which eventually became good old fashioned elephants snot by the lower sections.

I know it's strange but I actually enjoy this stuff. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't like to ski it every day and if there was a chance of powder it's a no brainer but on a warm damp day on the hill skiing stuff that is just slow and heavy does have it's appeal - its hard work but at least it's easy.

By the end of the day the precip had really turned on and it was raining almost to the top of the hill. The viz had socked in so that by 3 I felt that without a break I had done enough and headed for the Griz bar. This was promted by meeting both Dan ( first day skiing on his days off from the mine) and Rob ( first day back from a vacation in Vegas) both of whom said they were heading for the bar. The last run down Skydive was not without it's challenges as it just got heavier all the way down so that by the bottom you were almost stopped on each turn unless you kept the skis pretty much in the fall line - spring skiing at its best.

Still raining now after a good wings night at the Pub. Everyone was saying how bad the conditions were today, I pointed out that this was nothing compared with what it would be like when it starts to freeze at the weekend, it all went a bit quiet.

In summary a bad day which could have been made worse if the rain had started earlier, or if there had been more skier traffic to damage the hill or if the rain had started earlier.