Day 34 surprisingly busy but an ok day

Yes, it was rather busier today as I had anticipated that with the drift back to the city after the holiday today would have been really quiet, apparently not but we can hope for the next few days.

No new snow overnight and and the base was down to 157 cms so skiing was never going to be anything better than ok (which is quite good enough). As we arrived at the hill it was -8 at the base and a little cooler on top. During the bluebirdish day temps rose but never to get above zero at the base and by close of play it was down to about -3.

As a first for a few days we went to the Old Side to check things out. Our efforts in this direction were frustrated by the fact that the Boom chair had broken down and remained so for an hour or so. We had a quick rip down Bear then went out to the Sunny Side shoulder which was good but firm bumps. As we were trying to link up with a buddy we did another loop through Boomerang which was ok againg but firm bumps taking an edge.

In an attempt to give the Old Side a final chance to show what it could do we traversed all the way out to the boundary fence by Fish bowl and dropped Steep and Deep. Yet again it was ok but nowhwere near as good as what we have been skiing on the New Side for the past few days so with the added hassel of Boom broken down we skied out on Cedar Trail and headed for the New Side.

We tried the following -
Cougar Glades - rather more tracked than ithas been in the past but still great skiing through the trees. Even the ski out seemed a bit less scratchy.
Concussion - courtesy of Lynda's report, smooth blow in most of the way down.
Low Saddle - the only Saddle that looked even slightly worth attempting in their skied out state. A bit slick and icey through the steep part of the Saddle ( a good challenge) but what had yesterday been great powder below today was a bit chunky, tracked up and hard work.
Stag Leap - wonderful skiing through the trees, ok for most of the run and some ugly hard ice in the lower section.

After Lunch I linked up with some buddies and went back to do to New Side in much the same way -
Cougar Glades - as before
Decline - great on top getting harder work as you went down.
Sykdive - still very good powder on top but this time the right cut into Stag Leap was icey hard work, but great fun in my view.

A good point was made today about the ski down from Timber top to White Pass bottom on the New Side where many people just swing round the groomer and treat it in effect as a non run. Although the pitch is short my view is that this is some of the most fun skiing on the hill and today was no exception.

Lift Line was the most obvious route which although getting a bit tracked up was good steep skiing. The right cut into Big Bang was great with a steep drop into the lower right hand bowl being the best route. The hike up to Lazy Locals was only lightly used and two traverses have now been cut - the higher is ok but avoid the lower like the plague. Puff Trees still have plenty on snow in and about a hundred ways down. I suppose all I am doing is making the point that when you ski off Timber Chair there are great alternatives to just skiing round the groomers (as we know my view is that skiing groomers isn't skiing at all)

Flurries are forecast for overnight. In fact this week is forecast as an exact re run of last week where we got snow then rain then more snow, lets hope they are wrong about the rain bit.