Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Day 31 Just Kidding

I was playing around adding pictures to the blog as has been requested by a couple of readers but not having anything from the hill I got this pic out of my archives from when I was in Churchill last fall. Don't worry, although it has been a bit cold over the past few days it hasn't been quite cold enough for polar bears.

The pics seem to work ok so stand by for a blast of images if can ever get round to stopping skiing long enough to take some pics.

Although there was nothing much in the forecast we woke up this morning to about 5 cms of fresh in the town. Temps were about -12 and stayed down to about -9 most of the day. It was overcast with light snow which persisted all day and at times was quite hard particularly on the Old side. The New side was slightly less snowy but the wind blowing in off the ridge lines did add considerably to the fresh snow so that there was well over 10 cms in places by the end of the day.

We went to the Old side and were rewarded with first tracks in Boom bowl as there didn't seem to be many people around. No one had tried Boom ridge so we took first tracks in that which was also soft powder on the rather hard base of previous days. Cedar ridge had filled in with great blow in so we hit it two ways, left and right and good mostly unracked soft all the way down.

We did try to get out to Steep and Deep but the high Cedar traverse had been closed due to avi risk we could only get across as far as Snake just above KC chutes and had a great run all the way down to the bottom of Cedar in soft stuff on the right shoulder above KC. A couple more loops on Boom Ridge started to get a little scratchy due to traffic so we tried King Fir and found it to be some of the best powder on the hill probably because of the twiggy entrance discouraging anyone from trying it.

All this meant 4 returns through Kangaroo which we tried on both sides and even mixed up the drops onto the cat track just for the hell of it. Not great skiing but about as good as the roo gets with icey bumps covered by (some) soft. LateLunch.

In the afternoon we went to the New side which confirmed my guess that the snow had not fallen quite so hard there but the wind was picking up giving heavy blow in to the point that I almost stacked it in the top of Lift Line while hitting some heavy stuff. First loop off White pass was Surprise trees which after a fairly white drop through the Gun bowl proved to be mostly untracked and getting quite deep.

After that it was County Line loops -
Cougar Glades - Soft snow having dropped as the wind hit the trees meant good powder in the top but still dust on crust in the lower section.
Ananconda Glades/Bootleg Glades - untracked and getting seriously soft and deep in the lower sections of Anaconda ( first shoulder nice and steep).
Decline - Icey bumps followed by really nice soft untracked all the way down with the left side really quite deep.
Finish with Skydive - Icey bumps in then just generally soft terrain skiing all the way down with afew alders on the exit.

Wing night at the pub where service seems to be getting a bit slow. Still snowing although not very hard but loads in the forecast. Everyone getting excited in advance of tomorrows Canada v Russia hockey game. Could be a great day skiing followed by beer and hockey - what could be better.

2 comments:

  1. Do you want me to send you a few photographs of the hill! Ive got lots and no one would know the difference!
    Fiachra

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  2. No, it's ok I don't think I should accept a bail out from Ireland in the current circumstances.

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