Day 80 Eleven bucks a day !!

Yes, today was day 80 so the average cost of skiing has dropped to 11 bucks a day and still falling with each day skied.

It was colder than usual overnight and dawned at -8 with a forecast of a bluebird day and highs of plus temps at the bottom and just minus at the top - all of which proved to be about right. I worked on the basis that as they had opened Polar Peak for the free ski competition yesterday and it had moved to the Lizard headwall today then Polar peak would be open for hiking and this proved correct.

A buddy of mine from the ski patrol pointed out that as pretty well all the free skiers had hit the top rock band on a right to left jump they had left the skiers right chute ( polar bear) untracked. This was right and after a hike up I had polar bear more or less untracked to myself.

To tell the full story we had a few loops first in White Pass and found the overnight cool down had left the hill very hard with challenging conditions such as hard bumps all over the place. After this hiking Polar Peak to find fresh, untracked but not totally deep snow was ok.

Things were so good that I hiked Polar Peak again, each time droping back through Concussion and generally having a great time. Then went for a not so quick lunch for a rest.

In the afternoon went to Polar peak for the third time. It seems to me that hiking Polar peak three times in a day is about my limit - maybe 4 times before the season is out but not yet. The last run was as good as the first and by hitting the right shoulder in chutes that I don't even have a name for found great fresh snow even at the end of the day.

After all that hiking had just enough energy for one last drop through Skydive to finish which is getting a bit hard and testing but then thats why we ski it. As it is the last day for our Irish guests we have been having a bit of a party with friends first at the hill then back at the house - getting ugly but what can you do ?

Sorry I can't give much of a view of what was happening over most of the hill but my feeling was that it was hard and quite ugly. This was the reason for all the hiking and in the final analysis I can only comment on the snow that I actually put under my skis. If you need more just check out the official site which I am sure will say that we had "great skiing and riding all over the resort ......." etc.