Day 103 I love spring skiing

Of course anyone who knows me knows that I am no great fan of traditional spring skiing with the hard refrozen south facing slopes turning to mush in the afternnon and everyone getting very sweaty in their ski gear. What I do love is what we got today (on the second day of spring) which was full on winter conditions with snow all day, super deep hero snow just getting deeper all the time and possibly the best day of the season so far - at least qualifying for the epithet "awesome".

We woke to find 20 cms of new snow claimed over night and temps only just below zero. It was snowing and after yesterday I was worried about a rising rain line during the day but I need not have been concerned. It stayed cool on on hill all day with temps only getting a little above zero at the base and nearer -5 on the upper mountain. It snowed hard all day and by the close we are reckoned to have had another 20 cms of snow during the day and since that time well over 10 cms to freshen up things for tomorrow.

We went to the New Side and stayed there all day. In the initial stages we only had Heartland guts open off White Pass and after dropping Lift Line which was deep and real hero snow we put several runs through Highline Trees, Gun Bowl, Little Trees etc all of which had many untracked lines in the very light skier traffic that was around today. Just for the record, and to save me typing it over and over again the snow was deep hero snow, mostly untracked and filling in and getting deper so that if you skied a run more than 20 mintutes after the last guy you were skiing untracked powder. Also worth mentioning is the fact that from about mid morning everything was over the head face shots and deep creamy powder wherever you went.

We arrived at the zig zag line just as they dropped the fence and had an awesome rip under the lift line in untracked powder. Next loop we pushed out Knot Chutes which were super deep and Surprise Trees that were not much less. After a few loops of this we suddenly found Anaconda Glades open and had the most fantastic run down the second chute before cutting into Bootleg Glades where in the trees to the left your biggest problem was having to beat out your own slough.

Next time up White Pass we arrived at the top just as they were dropping the fence on Currie Bowl - we must have been very good in a previous life to have the luck we did today. We ripped out to Skydive in time to get third an fourth tracks in although we did get overtaken by a couple of rippers on the way down. It was fantastic untracked deep powder where you could just push your skis further and further into the fall line and pick up speed in the hero powder.

After that we just spent the rest of the day looping off the top of White Pass. Lynda broke 30 minutes for a quick lunch but I couldn't bring myself to do that so it was yet again a 9-4 unbroken full on powder day. The runs were the obvious ones Stag Leap (twice) the Brain (twice) Cougar Glades left in the trees all the way to the disused cat track (twice) Decline, Decline/Window Chutes etc. There is no point in describing any one run - they were all deep, apparently untracked due to the incredible fill in rate of the snow fall, and just fantastic face shots as you skied them faster and faster as the snow deepened.

We found ourselves out of synch for the last loop so had to put in a Knot Chute/Surprise Trees loop off White Pass. Both these areas had been left alone by the skier traffic, such as it was, all day because Currie bowl had been open and as a result we were rolling around in really deep snow at the end of the day with no other tracks in sight. We finished on Skydive where we had the traditional rip and as a result had face shots from top to bottom to finish what may well have been the most awesome day of the season.

In the Griz bar afterwards it was confirmed thathe base had passed 3 metre so the official 3 metre party duely took place. Best of all it snowed hard (and I do mean hard) for at least two hours after the hill closed. Even now with the snow tailing off down here in the valley it still looks pretty snowy as look up the hill from my deck. Put another way, I have a lot of confidence that start up tomorrow could be pretty good - lets see.