Day 74 no new snow but some great tree skiing

Yup, over night there was no new snow and not much sign of any more tonight although during the day there was the odd flurrie of ice/snow mix that may have accumulated almost 1 cm. It was -5 on the way to the hill and although base temps got up to about +3 it stayed well below zero on top. The hill was totally socked in at White Pass top and as a result Polar Peak remained closed all day. We decided to have a New Side day.

With everything socked in I took it into my head to have a days tree skiing which in the event turned out to be one of my better decisions. We went straight for Triple Trees and just like last night found good untracked lines. The final exit on to Summer Road was a bit sun affected but apart from that it was soft and deep.

Next loop we tried Cougar Glades which were good soft snow on the left. We hit the lower trees just to the right of Stag Leap and found a very interesting line which got wider and then thinner all the way down before turning into a disused cat track covered by deadfall. This was a part of the hill I had never seen and we had good fun high siding the deadfall on the cat track until it spat us out at the foot of  Stag Leap.

The Brain was next and was good soft snow still with some untracked lines in the lower section. I skied it just about as fast as I ever have as the lines just seemed to open up in front of me. We then had a drop through the trees above Stag Leap which were good tracked tree skiing before dropping the run itself which was still soft and not too bumpy.

With the morning running out I hit Secret Chutes/Spinal Tap and then Decline/Window Chutes which were all tracked but good soft snow if a little hard packed in the choke areas. We had a fairly late lunch.

After lunch I decided to adventure in runs that I knew but to to take lines that I didn't normally and that looked just very gnarly -
Cougar Glades - I stayed on the left side almost in Stag Leap and found some very tight lines in the trees almost all untracked because of their tightness. I took it all the way down to the newly discovered disused cat track from this morning.
Stag Leap left - I dropped the trees to Stag Leap but stayed in the trees to the left of the run which were good tracked tree skiing. After a while they opened up but as the open area and the creek below looked a bit easy I stayed in the trees to the right which had a tricky cross camber and were steep and untracked. I popped out on the final Pitch of Stag Leap from the left.
The Brain - but this time after the Megasauraus bike trail instead of hitting the trees to the right of the creek bed I went left, near to Decline. This pitch became super steep and tight so that you were having to drop 4/5 ft round each tree, taking air as you went and still having to work the tight trees. For the first time this year my heart rate shifted up a notch which was fantastic as far as I was concerned.

At the end of the day I found myself with a chance of one more base loop but maybe not and so I just did two Surprise Tree loops back through White Pass which were ok and still tree skiing although not in the class I had been doing all day. Skydive was great rip with buddies Dan and Stinger (just back from Mexico) all the way down in one.

With such a good day tree skiing too many beers got drunk in the bar and now it is down to my Irish guest to cook dinner before we all fall asleep. My good patroller buddy Tyler tells me that we may get a bit of snow tonight.