Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Day 18 the longest shortest day on record

Today was the shortest day of the year and on the promise of fresh snow we were in line just before 9:00 at the hill and skied through to closing bell with only a short break for lunch - certainly the longest shortest day I have ever had. Sadly the promised snow didn't materialise and we had about 4 cms of light fresh over night raising the base to about 135 cms but none the less it gave the hill a nice unskied look.

We went to the New side still taking the view that last weeks rain crust was worse the lower you went and still hadn't been entirely covered. First runs through Gun bowl, Puff and Highline trees confirmed that the new cover was more apparent than real.

We linked up with a buddy, Lee, up from Calgary for three weeks and had a few good runs - there you go Lee I promised you a mention in the Blog. We drifted out to Cougar Glades and had a very good run in dust on soft (the condition of the hill for the whole day ) and took the ski out to the left, a bit better as the undercrust was starting to take a bit of an edge.

We got to the bottom and found that Timber chair was out for maintenance so we went to the Old side. On the understanding that Timber wasn't going to be long we just traversed out to Steep and Deep off the top of Bear and had an ok run down and out through the right chute. As you would expect return was through Kangaroo and I am delighted to report that Lee confirmed that it was much better than he expected - a bit cruchy but ok. Boomerang was really quite nice then we hit back to the New side on the report that Timber had re opened.

Back up high we had a run through Decline which was as always very nice and easy. After that linked up with a buddy, Nick, and hiked the Cornice ridge to get to Lone Fir which was a bit tight and hard but beautiful soft snow underneath and great powder in the ski out through the old avi track. On a whim we crossed Easter bowl and dropped into Spinal Tap which was tight with debris in the bottom and still the only way down is to jump on and off the right shoulder.

After lunch we went back to the New side and tried Stag leap which as always was interesting but the terrain on skiers left was untracked and almost powder. Next I bumped into yet another buddy who wanted to ski Lone Fir so it was yet another hike, chute ski and powder rip - life can be hard. We returned to White Pass and had good runs through Milky Way Trees and Surprise trees (far right) before deciding to finish on , you guesed it, Skydive which was better still but with a little tight in the lower section.

Wings night at the pub was good - maybe Polar peak tomorrow morning.

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