Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Day 52 back in the saddles again.

Today we celebrated the reopening of the Saddles after about 4 weeks when they have been closed for one reason or another.

The overnight snow didn't materialise and we got to the hill in temps of about -2. During the day we had some socked in conditions with light snow while down in the valley we could see it was a sunny day. By afternoon things had cleared up and it became fairly bluebird with plus temps of around 4 at the bottom and on just below zero at the top. Despite the conditions the snow held up fairly well with some blow in later on and the surface only just starting to set up towards the end of the day.

Of our guests Tom was hurt to the point that he couldn't ski but Sophie came out and hung on in with me for a great day.

We started on Cougar Glades which just like yesterday was a bit crunchy on the first two turns but then got better and softer as we went down.

Next for a change we went into Siberia ridge which I hadn't skied for a while. The gnarly section wasn't all that gnarly and the terrain park section below was just fun all the way down flying the bumps and ridges.

We had noticed that the Saddles were open for the first time in weeks so we went out along the County Line and dropped Corner Pocket. This was in excellent condition if a little slick but with no sign of the tires coming through. Soft powder all the way below and a cut into Easter meadows for a nice run.

Next saddle was High Saddle which was a bit tougher with edge to edge jumping all the way through. This time we cut into Spinal Tap and as long as you avoided the sink holes it was very good deep only partially tracked powder all the way to the cat track.

We decided to go out to Skydive and have a look in the Brain which was probably the best snow on the hill as with a bit of work by getting close to the trees on the skiers right you could get mostly fresh lines until you had to traverse out into Skydive somewhere near the bottom.

Last run before lunch was a hike up Cornice Ridge and working our way into Lone Fir - biggest risk being barreled out by your own slough. This was great soft snow with an excellent ski out into Easter meadows for a final rip through for lunch.

After lunch we went back to the New side and went into Stag leap which as always was fun in the trees, good free riding all the way down and particularly fun hiting the big bumps on the skiers left in the final pitch.

As the Brain had proved so much fun we went back. This time I got in the trees to the left of the stream bed where I don't think I have skied for a few years. Very testing getting steeper and tighter but I did manage to get to the cat track in some very tight steep tree conditions.

A quick loop down Currie Creek proved that just like yesterday it was rather crusty with avi debris in the lower section. The final run of course was rip down Skydive which was setting up fairly hard.

Wings night at the Pub was good but on the way home it looked like we were going into the first section of a possible rain/snow mix called for over the next 24 hours - thank goodness they are calling for a cooling trend with precip after that.

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