Day 79 Business as usual

Thanks to Fiachra for his enlightening report of last night, and now back to business as usual. The temps overnight were a bit colder at -5 with no new snow so the base stayed at around 225 cms. forecast was for a sun cloud mix which was just about right with temps in the direct sun at the base getting up to +7 but in upper mountain cloud staying well below zero.

Went to the new side which seemed to have bumped up a bit from skier taffic. Had a good morning looping around White pass and trying not so tough stuff like Milky Way Trees, Puff Tres left, the Gun bowl, Surprise Trees etc. Hiked the Knot chutes which had developed a bit of a sun crust and so were ok but not as good as I thought they would be. Did a few more loops through Surprise before dropping into Currie to look at the Free ski competition which was taking place off Polar Peak and into the Polar chutes.

After watching the Free ski competitors demonstrate just how much more there is to this sport looped down through Concussion twice right up to the fence for the competition area which was soft, steep and good fun but with a couple of rocks starting to show through. Finished the morning with a hike into Mitchy chutes which were nice and soft at the top but a bit scratchy lower down, then a rip through 1-2-3s which was good all the way down and a very nice finish through Bootlegs glades.

In the afternoon we went to the old side if only because the Free ski had cut off most of the best skiing across the County Line and into Currie chutes. We had hoped for softening conditions but with increased cloud cover what we found was conditions underfoot very firm and setting up as it cooled. A trip out to Gorby bowl and Steep and Deep just went to prove that the conditions were getting appreciably tougher and the only way down was to let the skis run fast over the crud to stay on top and jump every turn to make sure you landed a secure platform in each check.

Cedar ridge and King Fir were much better as north facing slopes they didn't have the sun crust and there didn't seem to have been much skier traffic leaving a fair amount of soft tracked snow. This gave 3 runs through Kangaroo which was boiler plate icey bumps all the way down all the time it was skied - a bit challenging.

The last run through Boomerang was ok but the bumps are starting to get some steep edges and have to be watched. Looks like tomorrow Polar Peak will be open to the public so no prizes for guessing where I will be tomorrow.