Day 102 and not a bad day

We didn't get a repeat performance of yesterday and the snow which was falling as we left the hill must have stopped pretty quick as the morning reports only gave us 2 cms overnight with the base hanging out at about 230 cms.

The forecast was for sun with highs of +10 which was right but later in the day we got some cloud cover which tended to make the light a bit flat and surfaces which had been in the sun started to set up pretty quick.

We went to the Old side and after a few experiments in Lizard bowl which just proved that the snow was melting faster than we had thought we dropped off into Cedar bowl down new lift line and found the north facing snow soft and largely untracked although from about half way down where we encountered the rain line it suddenly became rather crusty.We looped Cedar ridge and King Fir a couple of times which seemed to confirm the picture.

Eventually we gave Boom ridge a lash and found it chunky in the top and soft easy turning in the bottom. Inspired by this we dropped Boom and found it very soft indeed. Following a pit stop at the Bears Den we headed out across Snake ridge with the intention of skiing Steep and Deep. A few turns confirmed that Redtree facing slightly more north was a better bet so we skied that and it was untracked and good soft snow all the way down the Redtree road.

All the Old side loops delivered 4 trips down Kangaroo which was, as always, icey bumps but softening nicely and actually very good skiing.

This gave us an idea and despite it being quite late we went out across Cedar high traverse and hiked into the Fish bowl. The north facing Poppa chutes were excellent deep and only lightly tracked snow. Probably should have cut out to Redtree but couldn't resist the final face into the bottom of the bowl and hike out which on reflection as it took us below the rain line from two days ago probably wasn't worth it. Last return through Boom was very hard work in the reforming chuncks of heavy snow.

Very very late lunch so we were only getting back on the new side about half past two. Managed a good run down Decline in some nice soft partially tracked snow which only became super soft in the bottom pitch. A quick loop through Anaconda which was good then a final run down across the County Line meeting friends on the way so that last trip was Decline and Window chutes to give them a chance to jump the log which they hadn't done before.

Beers then wings night at the Pub. On the way down I noticed the first Ghost Rider (shadow on Mt Hosmer) of the year if a bit deformed and unclear but a sign of spring. What next ??