Day 52 a bit of a celebration

The day started with the Olympic flame coming through Fernie which was great to see and is a good curtain raiser to the main event next month.

No new snow so New side - has to be at least 14 days I have said this since the last snow that covered all of the hill and not just the upper sections. Base about 210 cms, temps about -5 all over the hill which will at least keep the snow we have in ok shape. Met up as arranged with Bobby the Ski Club of Great Britain rep who arrived yesterday and starts tomorrow so was looking for a bit of a refresher course on Fernie's more interesting pitches.

Started in Surprise a couple of times which was getting very slick in the near chutes but still some fresh way out in the boonies. Anaconda was much the same with the snow getting better the further you went and Bootleg seemed to have dried out a bit and was ok but no better.

Hiked Knot chutes and found the surface much slicker but quite forgiving, the result was a good surface but if you got it wrong you were not going to stop any time soon. Finished the morning with a hike up Cornice ridge and a drop down Lone Fir. The upper part was fine but lower sections were a bit icey where some side slipping had obviously taken place. Tracked across Easter bowl and into Spinal Tap which was predictably very nice in the top and a bit scratchy below the fallen tree.

A quick lunch then out to watch the carboard derby which took about an hour. For those who don't know this is a special Fernie event where competitors try and steer their racers down hill onto a target. The only rule is that all racing machines have to be made of carboard and duck tape. As usual there were some very elaborate entries as well as some that fell apart, some that veered off track into the crowds and of course a couple that went down at light speed with no brakes and crashed through the safety barriers - we are small town and have to make our own entertainment.

In the afternoon set off down Siberia ridge but diverted into Disease trees - big mistake. We did get a bit far left but there was a lot of new timber on the ground and the surface was ice crust, took a fair bit of jumping and sliding round to get down. Next effort down Decline and Window chutes was much better with good snow at the top but the log drop back to over 6 ft and scratchy below the drop.

Somewhere in there we tried Cougar Glades ( good at first then not so good) and Mitchy Chutes, good all the way through. Final run down Skydive which was pretty tracked up but nice soft terrain all the way down to the final third when ice crust took over.

As it was Saturday gave the Griz bar a miss ( too crowded and music too loud) and went to Corner Pocket which was fine except for the very slow service as they were getting ready for the evening sittings. Quiet night in with no significant snow in the outlook.