Day 38 bring back the meat hook

A brief report as we just about to go out and get completely wrecked with 4 of our Welsh sailing buddies and best of all it is going to be at another buddy's house - result.

The start today was -28 and at best temps got up to mid teens at the base and quite a lot lower up the mountain. The base remained at 204 cms and whilst the low temps meant that where the snow was soft it was good it also meant that where it had been skied over it was hard and heavy.

I went to the Old side for the first time in a few days and was struck by the lack of people - it seems no one wants to ski in -28. This could be some kind of a record where more people today read my blog about skiing Fernie than actually skied Fernie - let's see.

They had opened the upper Lizard Bowl for hiking and against my better judgement I hiked the old face lift line. A couple of boarders had been there before me but they had hit off on the traverse for some reason. I just dropped to skiers right of the hike and had first tracks all the way down, it was so mellow that you didn't really need to turn much before you arrived at the cat track. Next was a hike out to Steep and Deep which took a bit longer than usual because the snow was cold and running slow. The tracked snow was pretty chunky but ok and the return through Kangaroo was surprising dry and crisp in the top but back to ugly icey bumps in the lower section.

We went to the New side and looped along the County Line dropping Cougar Glades and Stag Leap which were both ok but again chunky and heavy on top. Linking up with a buddy we then just had time for Window chutes which were a bit more challenging in the stiffer snow and we are still waiting for (English) Rob to make his first successful landing off the log drop this season.

After lunch I was on my own and just looped the old side with Cougar Glades and Stag Leap again featuring in heavy chopped up powder. We took a run off timber having met up with Rob again and this time I prevailed to run Siberia Ridge. Point proved, the ridge was great soft snow with the gnarly section hardly gnarly at all. As always a finish on Skydive which was good for two thirds of the way and very crusty for the rest.

Blog done - off to party.