Day 76 still weird weather for Feb

No new snow overnight but temps had dropped to just below zero in town and lower on the hill so a pretty safe bet that all the softening of yesterday was going to be pretty ugly -correct. As two members of our visiting group were trying their new skis today we went to the old side and had a couple of runs down a quite icey Bear to get them used to the new kit.

When we arrived at the hill we had light snow which stayed more or less all day getting very wet at the bottom by mid afternoon but remaining as good snow at the top. All evening it rained in town but with temps at only + 2 there has to be a snow line not that far up the hill ready for a powder day tomorrow.

After testing the new gear on Bear we moved on to Sunny Side which was icey then spent the rest of the morning dropping several different ways through Bear chutes, Cedar ridge, King Fir, Linda's, Boomerang, Boom ridge and Buckshot. All the runs were icey from yesterdays melt but the north facing slopes such as Cedar ridge were better than most. During the morning the general warmth had softened the lower parts of the runs and the new snow gave some dust on crust on the upper slopes which helped a bit. Kangaroo was a good bench mark which started very scratchy but by lunch time was quite soft and friendly 6th time round.

With the lower precip getting very wet we had lunch and went high into White pass. Did I mention we had hill cloud which gave poor viz and flat light in the morning which only got a little better in the afternoon.

Spent the rest of the day looping Surprise Trees which were filling in quite nicely on a hard base. As friends dropped out finished with loops on the county line to Decline, Stag Leap, Decline/Window chutes (log drop back to about 6 ft) and finally down Skydive. All the runs were about the same with big hard bumps in the top going to good soft snow free riding conditions in the mid section then mush at the bottom. Actually all very enjoyable if rather different conditions which required a different skill set to be employed as you came down the hill.

Hoping for some kind of powder up top tomorrow. Longer forcast calls for these warm temps for a couple of days then dropping to daytime highs of -13 by Monday - should make for very interesting conditions.