It rained all night so we hoped it was snowing on the hill. The temp on the deck was only +3 in the morning so we hoped that the rain/snow line would be quite low so we were very disappointed to see that it was quite far up the hill. The official web site was calling 25 cms of fresh powder over night so we headed up early to get first tracks.
It was still raining at the base as we got the Timber chair on the grounds that higher was going to be better. This was confirmed by a conversation I had later in the day with a ticket checker who said that the Old side sort of sucked all day.
First run down Lift Line to White Pass just showed how high the rain had gone so that the final couple of turns into White Pass chair was really heavy wet snow. Fair enough, the call of 25 cms was probably right but powder ? well I suppose in some places it may count as powder just because it was untracked but not in Fernie.
After a short delay for avi control which we whiled away with a snowball fight in the lift line up we went up White Pass chair. At the top and up to about half way down the snow was ok but the second half was wet chunky snow and got more so as the morning went on. Off and on it was snowing all morning and by lunch the rain line was above White Pass base and even at the top it was getting heavy in not very good light.
Currie bowl remained closed so we spent all morning up and down White Pass not able to go further than Falling Star to the right and Surprise Trees to the left. By lunch time everywhere was heavy and wet. We skied out down Summer Road and found the bottom of the hill pretty much destroyed around the base with a 50:50 mix of slush and bare earth.
With rain tipping down and confirmation from patrol that the rain line would continue to rise even higher up White Pass we decided to call it a day, the first time we have come off the hill early this year - that's how bad it was. To be fair the first couple of hours were ok but after that ......
We are promised more precip, falling temps and another 15 cms overnight but this time coming down low - we will see.
Monday, March 29, 2010
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