Day 44 an experimental day

The experimental day was due to the fact that I was trying out my new boots for the first time today. Actually after a couple of runs I realised that they were 95% ok, particularly pleased that the right foot which is the one that is always a problem was totally comfortable, so the experiment ended and we just had a blast round the hill for the rest of the day.

It was a cold start at about -15 and only 1 cm of fresh snow so the base hung in at 168 cms. During the day temps came up and it was -8 as we drove away from the hill tonight. Although clouds seemed to be about in the valley we had some reasonable sun for most of the day but towards the end it did weather in at the top and the light faded suggesting maybe some weather was on the way.

We went to the Old Side for an experimental trip down Bear which was well groomed and nice for GS turns. The Sunny Side shoulder was quite hard bumps but with enough soft snow on top to be easy bump skiing. We then headed out for two further trips down Steep and Deep which was lightly tracked and you were only just touching the bottom in places. The exit chutes from Steep and Deep have now filled in and you can more or less pick the gully you want to use to get back to the Haul Back with only a little interference from the alders.

We took several runs off Cedar Ridge/King Fir which were all in quite deep tracked powder and very acceptable. We used Boomerang to loop back to Bear when we were doing Cedar bowl loops and it was ok but pretty hard bumps underneath. Four drops through Kangaroo were enough to get the new boots well bedded in - it was actually soft on an ice bump base with a few twigs. Boom ridge remained vandalised by the effect of yesterdays grooming, it will take another good dump to undo the damage that has been done.

After lunch I headed off to the New Side and Lynda headed to the gym. I bumped into some buddies who all ski about the same as me and we had a great afternoon pushing each other.

Lift line had some blow in which was a bit grabby but otherwisw ok. First stop was Cougar Glades which skied just as nice as yesterday with a bit of base scraping in the lower parts with the trail now almost obliterated by the snow we have pushed down from above.

Easter bowl was great windsift in the top and ok tracked powder in the middle with a soft covering on bumps in the lower ski out. Freeway as a route onto the trail back to Timber has been much improved by the new snow but still has a few icey patches to ambush you.

I was reminded today that in yesterday's report I didn't make mention of the fact that we had traversed into the Knot chutes and got into the second Tight Knot chute which had been ok soft snow if a bit varied. We thought about it today but rejected it due to the poor light.

Anaconda Glades remain the best snow on the hill with deep soft, windsifted and still in many places untracked snow - first chute over the hump still seems the best to me but everyone has their favourite. We dropped straight into Bootleg Glades which is getting a little tracked up but there is still fresh to be found if you are prepared to take the trees close.

Finding ourselves at the top of Decline we dropped into Secret chutes which obviously aren't that secret as they had been skiied but the snow was still pretty good and soft. Final run of course was Skydive which remains just as it has for the past couple of days.

The hill is staying in remarkably good shape following the snow earlier in the week partly because of the low temps and partly because of the low skier numbers - at times today I felt quite lonely out there. I dare say this will change at the weekend but as we have 4 days snow forecast from Saturday night I am not too worried, looks like winter is here at last.