And the reason it just got better all day was that it started snowing this morning and is only just showing signs of stopping. Add to this some serious wind blowing in wind sift and smoothing out surfaces with wind grooming and you have a formula for an ever improving day.
Overnight they were calling about 10 cms of fresh but as I said it was snowing, quite hard at times, from the outset. I would think we had about 15 cms during the day so on top of the 215 cm base we has some great skiing. Temps were up at -1 at the base and -4 on top, conditions were obviously overcast and the viz was pretty poor anywhere above mid mountain.
We went to the Old Side on the grounds that Cedar High Traverse had been closed all yesterday so Snake Ridge should have been pretty good. The traverse was closed and remained so all day but the decision to go to the Old Side remaind good as we were skiing in the trees which was very helpful in the poor light.
We had a typical Old Side morning poking around in Cedar Ridge (several ways) Boom Ridge ( left shoulder still best) Linda's ( Linda's private parts in the trees was particularly nice), Boomerang (through the guts), King Fir (several different ways) and Buck Shot just to name a few. Most of the places were untracked or had untracked lines due to the complete lack of people on the first day of non holiday skiing for a couple of weeks. It snowed very hard right up to the holidays, during the Christmas break there was hardly any snow and now it is over were are back into a big snow cycle - I guess God isn't a Calgarian.
Of course every drop from the top of Haul Back was down Kangaroo which remains very twiggy in the top section but very mellow in the lower parts. We went to lunch with snow still falling hard and reports that the New Side was even better.
After lunch we went to the New Side and found that the light was socked in. Polar Peak had been running but there was no point in going up there for bragging rights when by now the new snow lower down was boot deep and getting deeper by the minute - in any event Polar Peak closed almost as soon as we got to the New Side.
It worked out as -
Cougar Glades/ Stag Leap - we stayed left in the trees in the glades and had some very tight lines which to all intents and purposes were untracked. Stag Leap was filling up with deep soft snow and was a beautiful rip.
Siberia Ridge - we thought this might not have been skied much and we were right. The choke was as always a bit scratchy but after that it was like soft deep terrain park all the way down - a real free riders run.
Big Bang - we had noticed how good this looked from the Lazy Locals high traverse so we dropped off next time round and had great deep smooth powder we could roll down with fast GS turns. So good we included it in every loop.
The Brain - only a couple of tracks in there and those were filled in. The best run down there of the season with the snow holding you up so you could really take the trees tight to get the best line.
Decline/Window chutes - by this time Decline was skiing like a deep untracked free riding terain park where you could take air off every bump and land it softly. The Window Chutes were so full of snow I hit the log drop right off the centre and hardly noticed the landing. Almost got taken out by my own slough coming through the choke.
Skydive - what a finish. By the end of the day the snow was deep, of hero quality and filled in so it looked almost untracked. I had one of my rushes of blood to he head and had a total rip just on the edge of control (actually just beyond the edge but holding it together) with the skis in the air more than they were on the ground. it's always a good run when your buddy asks "are you sure you made any turns in that last pitch?".
So an awesome day and maybe better to come with more snow in the forecast. The temps of around zero are a worry and a threat of the R word has been mentioned for Wednesday but lets just hope we stay lucky.
Monday, January 7, 2013
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