Sunday, March 20, 2011

Day 98 if it's Sunday how come no one is here

Maybe it was last night's partying at the '80s weekend party (yes sorry about yesterday's report but I had drunk enough beer to float a reasonable sized boat) but today on the hill was the quietest Sunday I have ever seen. Of course it may be something to do with high ticket prices, slow economy, avi closures and lift break downs over the past few weekends etc but then what do I know.

We had about 4 cms of fresh overnight bringing the base back to over 380 cms. On the way to the hill temps were -2 at the base and -6 at the top but this rose rapidly so that by mid afternoon we had +8 at the base and +5 at the top. There was a bit of direct sunlight but for the most part it was diffused through cloud which became heavier as the day went on. The result of the warm and fairly moist air was to give soft spring skiing conditions even on the north facing slopes.

As usual we went to the New side to see what the fresh snow was like. It was pretty slabby having been packed in by the wind and the ski tips were getting pulled all over the place. That having been said it was fresh untracked snow and it did slough up when you skied it so it just about counted as powder, at least until it really warmed up around mid day. The effect of the new covering was to firm up the base from yesterday giving a fairly bumpy ride.

We worked out way across the Gun bowl/Highline trees which were as I said a firm base with some soft on top. A couple of Knot chutes (tight and fraid) were similar as were Anaconda and Bootleg and a loop back through Surprise Trees which was starting to soften by late morning.

We then started drifting out along the County Line and ran Stag Leap, Easter bowl, Decline, Cougar Glades and Skydive. All were very similar, a bit bumpy on top, great soft snow most of the way down and a bit crunchy at the bottom but softening as the day went on.

After lunch it was back up the New side via Lift Line and Mitchy chutes but of which had become fairly soft. When we got to County Line it had been closed due to some sun induced slippage in Polar chutes but the low traverse to the front side remained open.

We looped Stag Leap (again), Decline into Window chutes, Cougar Glades (again) and Easter (again). By this time it was starting to set up pretty hard underfoot as the sun went down and I just had time for one last Knot chute (very crunchy) and Surprise trees (surprisingly soft).

The final trip out down the traverse to Sykdive was very hard and bumpy with what had been soft sun affected snow becoming quite crusty, a good indicator of where not to go tomorrow until things warm up. The final blast down Skydive was soft bumps followed by great tracked powder and the final section turning to ice crunch as things cooled down.

Beers, hot tub, early night, what could be better. Snow cycle due to hit in the next few days.

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