Day 27 the crowds start - but not too bad

You have to understand that by crowds we are talking in Fernie terms, not European. This means that whilst the numbers were up today there were no lift lines and only once did we have to share a 4 person chair, as I said crowded is a relative term.

Temps were about zero as we reached the hill and -5 on top. That might have got a degree or two warmer at the base but stayed nice and cool up high. There had been a dusting of 2 cms new and the base was 111 cms. We went to the New Side not because we thought the skiing would be great but because on a busy day the New Side is usually less congested first thing.

The new snow had just freshened things up a bit and the wind had obviously been in play as there were a few swept areas and some wind sift in the dips. We did much the same as we have been doing for the past few days and Lift Line with a right cut into Big Bang was a very nice way down to White Pass base.

We tried a loop back through Surprise trees and found that the traverse had deteriorated a bit but when you got there the Surprise Trees had improved yet again and were some nice soft snow on the old base. I only went out there one again a fair bit later in the morning and this time hiked the hump in Anaconda Glades and put first tracks in the second chute which didn't look like it had been skied at all in the new snow and was knee deep powder in places - awesome.

For the rest of the time we looped out along the reverse traverse taking whatever was on offer. There was some great stuff in the near Concussion chutes and Alpha Centauri but going further into Severe Concussion things got even better. We did this several times and it was always good.

We had two drops through Easter bowl which were both good soft snow particularly in the top if a bit hard and bumpy low down. Best snow was in Cougar Glades which had sifted in and was , as near as I could see, untracked, except by Lynda's head half way down due to a moments inattention. After all this we had a deliberatly late lunch to avoid the post Christmas crowds.

We had intended to go to the Old Side in the afternoon but we were so late we didn't want to risk finding it was no good and having to come back to the New Side and risk missing most of the afternoon particularly when we knew the New Side was so good. So we spent the afternoon doing what we had done all morning and it was just as good.

Final run was rip down the top of Skydive which was still just awesome deep powder and a little less twiggy than in the past few days. Even the bottom section of Decline had improved so it was just gnarly with some interesting pitches between the bushes.

A few beers in the bar and my buddies have arrived from Vermont. The slightly worrying thing is that after a 24 hour snow cycle that may produce up to 10 cms of fresh there is still some wet stuff in the outlook to follow - one day at a time.