Day 83 the next snow cycle begins

Yes, we seem to be starting a new weather system which no forecasters really have seen and which gave us about 10 cms of snow during the day and may give us up to 30 cms of fresh going into Saturday with possibly 100 kilck winds.

On the way to the hill it was -5 and overcast. We had only been skiing for about an hour when it started to snow. It snowed all day (sometimes quite hard) and I would imagine that by the end there had been an accumulation of around 10 cms.

We went to the Old Side and decided to loop Snake Ridge on the grounds that the group today was made up of people who could actually get out to the end of the traverse without having a heart attack brought on by unacustom exertion.

We had 5 loops out to Snake and hit Gorby bowl left and Gorby Bowl right, Curved Ball into the trees below and then Steep and Deep, high shoulder into Steep and Deep and Snake Ridge and KC Chutes, all in no particular order. This meant 5 returns through Kangaroo which was quite hard bumps in the top section and very hard bumps in the lower. As I have said before, Kangaroo is meant to be a an icey bump run so none of us can be surprised if that's how it turned out.

We completed the loops through Boomerang or Bear Chutes which were ok and getting better as the snow continued to fall. In fact the only down side of the increasing snowfall was that the push out to Snake got harder each time although this was compensated by the deepening powder that we found.

After lunch we went up the New Side and were amazed to find that Polar Peak was open, considering the snowfall which was getting pretty heavy and the resulting almost zero viz - or as I said in the Griz Bar tonight "that was the worst visibility I have ever seen". It was a total grope down the chutes and although the snow felt good under the skis the lack of viz meant that it wasn't worth another trip.

We then had two loops in Cougar Glades which had a few tracks although these had been put in the more open areas (appearently by two of my intermediate friends) so that as long as you had the technical ability there was plenty of untracked lines to be found.

Next loop was in Skydive trees where the new snow was making the lines really mellow and even the exit at the bottom through the dead fall was getting pretty ok. We needed a quick White Pass loop so I dropped the top of Triple Trees on my own as the rest of the group didn't feel up to the exit push along Trespass Trail. The snow in there was getting pretty deep as the snow fall continued.

The final rip down Skydive was a pretty mellow event as the snow continued to build up. By the bottom it was soft and easy bumps.

The forecast is for a big snowfall cycle over the next day or two with 100 kph winds. This could get really good.