Day 118 a bad hotdog day

Well, of course it wasn't bad in the sense of anything being wrong but it was bad in the sense that after skiing we got in some very serious partying with our buddies and now are trying to recover with a quiet night in which isn't being helped much by the need to get rid of the remians of the Jamesons Irish Whiskey which should keep us busy for the rest of the evening.

This morning dawned overcast with temps of about - 2 as we arrived at the hill. No new snow overnight still left a base of around 425 cms but the conditions were rock hard ice everywhere off the groomers. Even on the groomers it was pretty slick ice in most places. It warmed through the day but not as much as you might have expected in the overcast conditions.

Today was hotdog day (a celebration of the 1980s movie Hotdog which is a sloppy mix of skiing and soft porn) so we celebrate in the only way we can by dressing in retro gear, doing hot dog stunts and getting unbelievably drunk in the process.

We went to the Old Side as tradition demands that on hot dog day you only ski the Old Side. Everything was very crunchy and we looped out Cedar Bowl by the big avi debris and a few other places staying on the groomers initially as everything else was all but unskiable.

Now, on Hotdog day security comes into play to stop anyone taking beer on to the hill. Why they should try and do this is beyond me as they are quite prepared to serve you all you can drink (and more) at the Lost Boys Cafe and on any other day they are quite prepared to tolerate drug taking (people smoking skunk unmolested) all over the hill, so why it becomes an issue with alcohol on Hotdog day is anyone's guess.

I am not suggesting in any way that the rules should be broken but if you wanted to then what you would do would be to get to the hill early before the security checks and take your cans up the hill to bury them up near Wallaby where the action is going to take place. This of course is something that we wouldn't do. After we hadn't done this we spent the rest of the morning poking around the Old Side.

We got into Boom a bit early and like most of the Old Side it was crunchy, tracked up frozen horses heads. next time round it was no better, nor was Cedar Ridge. Kangaroo actually skied ok if a bit crunchy in places. Boom ridge was probably the best skiing but still crunchy as the overcast conditions kept the snow colder than it might have been in other circumstances.

After an early lunch what with the Old Side skiing and the other stuff that we didn't do we then headed to the New Side. We were amazed when arriving at the top of White Pass we found that Polar Peak had just opened. No one had gone up the Peak ahead of us and no one went up while we skied down - the conditions were butt ugly and it may just be that we were the only ones stupid enough to give it a try. The Papa bear chute was zero viz in the top and ugly crud lower down as soon as soon as the viz improved. We dropped via Corner pocket which is still skiing very mellow with no tires showing and the snow underneath was the best all day which was untracked (almost) powder all the way down to Dancer.

We had decided to go back to the Old Side but a trip up Elk confirmed that the rain that had been threatened for the day had started - it had been coming down in Polar Peak as wet snow. One trip up was enough to convince us that old hotdog ski gear just isn't up to rain and we called it off for the day and headed to the Griz bar. If we had buried any beer then the first job tomorrow would be to go and dig it up from just above Wallaby.

In the bar things got totally out of hand with drink, music, more drink, dancing and more drink - a perfect Hotdog day. Best of all is that the snow line has moved down the hill so it is snowing on the deck as I am writing this and there is a heavy snowfall warning in place for the Elk Valley - bring it on.