Day 95 a couple of hocks off hollywood rock on an awsome Paddy's day

So, happy Paddy's day which we have celebrated by having far more beer than is really a very good idea so please excuse any errors.

Only a couple of cms of fresh overnight and starting temps of just below zero. This seemed to catch the city on the hop so that the highway hadn't been treated and on the way to the hill we saw three cars in the ditch (one inverted) and we had the back end drifting all over the place even though we had 4x4 engaged and good snow tires - forgive the non uk spelling.

The potential opening that I refered to in last night's post was of course Currie bowl which by my calculations had 85 cms of fresh deep powder since the last time it was open. As we arrived at the hill we were told by ski hosts that "everything was open" which proved to be totally wrong. Currie bowl was closed and a patroller was stationed at the end of the Idiot Traverse to stop us getting across into Currie bowl via Anaconda while they were still doing prep work. We cycled on Knot chutes and the chutes just before Surprise trees in good, soft but slightly harder than yesterday snow which made for great skiing, in the mean while we waited for Currie Bowl to open.

Late morning Currie opened and we hit out across the bowl and took the low traverse out to Skydive which took a little step up to get there. There was only one track in Skydive and the four of us (me, Lynda, Rob and Randy) just hit it in the fall line on the 85 cms of un touched powder - no words can describe it, the fall line powder at maximum speed was a sensation you can't describe. The lower third was a little tracked with skiers coming in from Lizard over the past couple of days but that was a small price to pay for the top two thirds. Perhaps the best run I have had ever, ever, ever.

After that it was a day of looping out into the front side runs-
Cougar Glades - awesome deep powder all the way through the first time,mostly untracked and even good soft snow with patches of un tracked later in the day on our second loop.
The Brain - totally untracked deep awesome soft powder so that we could take the creek bed almost all the way down to the cat track, the best it has ever been with powder in tight trees.
Stag Leap - as always, a bit less tracked than most of the runs and particularly down the left side loads of untracked snow.
Easter Bowl - Wonderful soft deep snow but a bit tracked up.
Secret Chutes - Just like Easter Bowl in the top then we cut into Spinal Tap which was amazingly so full of snow that the fallen tree that we used to ski under could now be skied over.
Decline/Window chutes - Decline was great fun soft and as you broke left into Window Chutes it became the deepest untracked powder on the hill. The log drop was little more than a bump and the whole chute was very deep and soft except for the final ski out which was a bit scratchy.

While looping back through Lift Line/Mitchy chutes I did something that I have never done before - I hocked off the top of Hollywood Rock. It was such an adrenaline rush that I did it again and managed a landing both times but with one hand in the hill, someone did remark in the locker room that I was becoming 16 all over again, could be true.

A final rip down Skydive, meeting up with all the usual suspects at the top before taking what was an amazing rip on soft but fairly tracked up snow from top to bottom. On any other day it would be considered the best run of the day, it was only the fact that today was so good that made it nothing more than very good.

Tomorrow could be just as good, stay high and keep high could be a good plan.