Day 128 Furnival

Today was the Furnival celebration which usually means not much skiing and quite a lot of drinking. Today we did ok by the drinking but actually got in quite a lot of skiing.

It was about +4 as we reached the hill but it was overcast and stayed that way all day so with no direct sunlight the melt line just worked it's way slowly up the hill all day. The only change was late afternoon when we started to have a graupel storm which quickly turned to full on winter snow before slipping back to hazy sun all in the space of about 30 minutes.

We went to the Old Side on the grounds that yesterday ( and most days in the season) this softens some time before the New Side. It was not as soft as yesterday and things were warming a good half hour slower.

We went out around Boom Ridge which we found was softening just about ok and then as the day went on we skied it more. Much the same for Lynda's run and Boomerang which were done several times. First time down Cedar Centre was very rough and scratchy although it got better. Run of the morning was Kangaroo which we ran 4 times and was a firm base with soft snow taking an edge on top and the bumps smoothed out in the previous soft conditions. Lunch

After lunch we went to the New Side and found that things has softened but not all that much. Polar Peak had opened but as a reflection of how things were different from yesterday only the Polar Coaster side opened but the chutes stayed closed due to icey conditions all day. We went up and took the Coaster down which as I have said before I don't count in my Polar Peak total as it is , whatever you think, a groomer.

From then on we just looped -
Skydive - great corn snow all the way down with just a couple of soft turns in the bottom.
Stag Leap - rather technical in the trees in the top due to variable conditions and then as with Skydive.
Decline - just like Skydive but rather better in the lower sections with fast GS turns.

We then had to do a couple of loops back through White Pass to kill time. I went into Surprise Trees which I honestly expected to be pretty crappy but was actually really nice and taking an edge. It was so good that I went back and did it all over again which was if anything better as I had got more used to the conditions.

Last run was Skydive which was in awesome spring skiing shape and the GS turns just kept getting bigger and faster,

Afterwards it was April Wine in the plazza followed by far too much beer in the Griz Bar. Forecasts are for a possibility of powder over night so we could actually get fresh tracks on closing day - how good is that ?