Day 15 still pretty good

Not really much you can say about today. As a result of yesterday's snow things were a bit better but no huge change in the way they have been for sometime.

It was -7 when we arrived at the hill and temps got up to -3 by the afternoon but stayed a bit cooler on top. Conditions were overcast with the top of White Pass totally socked in and a forecast of afternoon flurries which never really materialisied.

We went to the Old Side and tried several loops out to Red Tree, Steep and Deep and Snake Ridge all of which had fresh untracked powder on the upper parts. The ski outs had improved a bit with new snow but not that much and getting to the very bottom was always hard work through alders, roots, stumps and rocks.

Cedar ridge probably showed the most improvement with sections opening up in the new snow giving access to previously unskied areas. As always Boomerang, Boomerang Ridge and Bear chutes were good ways back either to Boom or Bear chairs to complete a loop but there remain a lot of logs and other early season hazards that need a bit dealing with when skiing the tree sections.

The afternoon was back to the New Side with loop after loop out into Currie bowl under the new Polar Peak loading station. Just like yesterday no one was really prepared to put the effort in to side step traverse into Currie so for the few of us who were prepared to make the effort we had great untracked powder anywhere we wanted to go in the chutes all the way across to Currie Creek.

I understand that the Saddles remained pretty poor but that the snow below was very good. On balance I decided to give it one more day before I put the extra effort in to get back in the Saddles. Last rip was through Cougar Glades which had again filled in and was great untracked powder all the way down to the bottom trail. I decided to try the final exit by going left into the creek bed that I usually use but found it very woody with a couple of fallen trees and very much a hop and pop experience.

The hill did seem a bit busier today but I suspect if you took away the off duty staff members then those of us fare paying customers would still be in very small numbers. A couple of groups today appeared to be tour reps getting to know the hill so they can guide their guests when they show up in a week or two. This always amuses me to see those who today know nothing of Fernie guiding guests in a weeks time with all the confidence and authority that only comes with true ignorance.

Snow in the forecast for the next 6 days although mostly only flurries - of course anyone who knows Fernie knows that a flurrie can be anything from 2 to 22 cms.