Day 11 why you should always hang on in there

The reason why you should always hang on in there is because things can always get better as they did today.

We woke to find a covering of something white on the trucks outside our house which turned out to be very heavy wet snow. As we drove to the hill it was a snow rain mix with a temp of +1 and at the hill it was rain at the bottom becoming wet snow as you went higher.

As yesterday we decided to go high and as yesterday the White Pass chair was shut so we returned to the base where I put on a layer of rainproof plastic ($9.99 from Canadian Tire) and headed for the old side.

The Old side was mostly closed with no chance of getting into Cedar or Lizard bowls so we skied a bit on the old side triangle. If anything had been groomed it was long buried under the rain snow mix so skiing was on pure elephant's snot becoming a bit pisted lower down. Add to this poor viz and a continuing rain snow mix and it is fair to say that an early finish looked on the cards.

We got notice that White Pass had opened and we headed over. Very little was open, the Gun bowl was closed and full of avi debris with a 1 metre fracture line in the top. The I bowl was closed and full of debris from the Knot Chutes. All that left was Highline/Heartland and similar which were all good powder in poor viz but getting a bit chunky towards the bottom. We hiked several times into Milky Way Trees which were good but heavy powder and really hero snow all things considered.

After lunch I hooked up with my buddy Dan and we went back up the New Side and he showed me Morning Glory Trees for the first time this year. By this stage the temps had dropped so that even the lower hill was setting up pretty firm and the flurries were coming in as ice pellets top to bottom. Morning Glory Trees were just great, loads of untracked so you could pick you line, wind filling in as you skied, and fresh snow just a longer traverse away.

Things were so good that we just looped Morning Glory until close always finding untracked snow. The long ski out was a bit of a pain but if that was what was putting everyone else off then it was worth it.

A couple of drinks in the bar with friends then off to wings night at the Pub. Temps continue to drop with more snow in the forecast so it looks like we may have got away with this lastest pineapple express without too much damage to the hill although not having seen the avi damage in Cedar or Currie bowls I may want to revise that opinion.