Day 11 first rant of the season

Well, eleven days in before I have need to give out with my first rant is something of a record but here goes. The rant is about the dickless tossers who throw garbage on the hill. Even with so few people as we have had so far I have already seen a paper coffee cup, a beer can and a power aid bottle dropped from lifts. For Christ's sake have some respect. If you can take this stuff up the hill you can put it in one of the garbage sacks at the top of each lift. The snow Gods are offended by this sort of behaviour and they will get their revenge by giving us poor snow conditions, so stop behaving like complete wankers and keep your garbage to yourself - rant over.

On the way to the hill we had temps of +1 and about zero at the base. I guess the freeze line rose a little way up the hill but stayed a few degrees below zero in the upper mountain. The top of the hill was very socked in (even more than yesterday) and viz in the Gun bowl on the New Side was as near to zero as makes no difference.

We went to the Old Side and spent the early morning in Lizard where there were many ways down on snow that had been compacted by skier traffic. I have always called this surface hard pack but I am now encountering a new name - packed powder. How packed snow can be powder is a mystery to me but I guess the power of the P word is such that anything will be called powder (even hard pack) if it brings the punters in.

Late morning I decided to give Snake Ridge a try after yesterday's reports but was just a little disappointed to find a slight wind crust and skiing certainly no better than what we had under the Saddles yesterday although knee deep and lightly tracked. Either conditions had deteriorated or the had been exagerated. The skiing was good untracked powder but the exit into Lower Gorby bowl was a bit scratchy with some frozen avi debris just as you got into the bowl.

We had further runs through Boomerang and Boom Ridge which were both wind affected crust and not much fun. Worth noting the first very twiggy run down Kangaroo of the season which was more to say it had been done than for any fun reasons.

Over to the New Side and we spent a lot of time running out on the Reverse Traverse and dropping off when it looked good. That way we had Alpha Centauri (very mellow. soft and easy) Concussion (wind crust in the top but soft powder low down) Toms (also wind crust in the top but nice soft snow that was only lightly tracked although a bit twiggy after the choke) and Curry Creek (awesome deep untracked powder in the top with the bushes nicely spaced but a bit of a nightmare on the exit with the alders) and then a late lunch.

After lunch a run down  Cougar Glades found them full of deep snow with the tracks filled in by the snow/ice fall that had started around midday and fell for the rest of the afternoon - the only mistake was trying the left chute exit at the bottom which was very scratchy and twiggy.

To fill in time I went to Surpirse Trees and found them almost untracked and soft and deep even at the end of the day. I think the bad light in the Gun Bowl had deterred traffic although there was hardly anyone on the hill to begin with.

Last run was as always down Skydive which was steep, deep and bump terrain, great skiing. On the way home it was -1 in the valley and snowing so lets see what happens.