Day 75 Puking snow all day

About 3 in the morning I got up for a pee and noticed that it was not snowing, about 5 I got up for a glass of water and noticed it was snowing pretty hard. When the alarm went off at 7 it was still snowing hard as it did up until about 3 in the afternoon with the fall rate at times having to be at around 5 cms per hour. The initial report from the hill was 5 cms of fresh and a base of 280 cms, wouldn't surprise me if we didn't get to 300 cms during today in which case the 3 metre party is due in the Griz bar tomorrow night when we will all get incredibly drunk - try and differentiate it from any other night if you can.

It was so socked in that we thought that and Old side start in the Old side triangle would be the right way to go. As we lined up at Deer we were told that Bear and Boom would be a half hour opening so we immediately headed for the New Side. Amazingly not only was White Pass running but everything on this side of Currie bowl was open. Everyone seemed to have used up their favours at work yesterday to get the morning off to ski so as a result there were no crowds around with about 20 of us lined up at Timber for first turn.

We decided to take the Idiot Traverse out towards Surprise in the hope that Anaconda was open but with not great expectation. We were over the moon when we found that Anaconda was open and that we (Me, Nick and Lynda) were the first three there in what by that stage must have been about 20 cms of fresh snow on top of the 30 that had fallen over the previous two days. Hard to describe just how awesome the first tracks down Anaconda and Bootleg were where we were able to surf our massive sloughs all the way through the trees.

After that we spent all morning tracking out to either Anaconda/Bootleg or dropping Surprise, initially cutting back tp White Pass but later going further out and running Triple Trees all the way to the base. With the impressive fall rate all tracked stuff was filled in and untracked stuff was just getting thigh deep. Late morning for a change we hit Siberia ridge which by that time was an untracked terrain park of deep rolling fluff.

Next time round White Pass had been closed due to stability problems so we went to the Old side only to find that loading had been stopped on Bear and Boom for the same reasons - time for an early lunch. After lunch, not trusting what White Pass may throw up we went to the Old Side for the afternoon.

Maybe Dougie was right yesterday and the best snow was on the Old side as there certainly seemed to be more snow of a slightly stronger consistency which gave the best powder skiing I can remember for several years. We just rolled all over the Old Side skiing several times, Boom, Boom Ridge, Linda's (including Linda's private parts) Cedar ridge several ways, Buckshot, King Fir and of course the usual return through Kangaroo. Even hit the trees and log rolls between Boom ridge and Cedar Trail for the first time this season and the trees on the skiers right of Haul Back (really steep and deep) for the first time ever.

Everywhere was the same, awesome, awesome deep powder where you could wind up the speed to the point where you were just flying (I mean it really felt like you were flying) and then just float down with a series of face shots. The Austrians say that there are two great sensations in life and one of them is skiing in powder snow - the Austrians are right.

A totally awesome day where Currie bowl and Cedar high traverse never opened. This means that with things settling down then if they can bomb the ridges tomorrow then we will have just as much again fresh powder just waiting for us. Time for bed and to dream of another powder day tomorrow.