Day 112 a fun day in the snow

You will notice I make no reference to the skiing which was actually pretty poor but to the amount of fun we had today which was just awesome. Yet again it was a bluebird day (the longest run of bluebird days I can remember) and temps on the way to the hill were only -2. Everything warmed up fast on the south facing slopes and by the end of the day became so mushy that a significant part of the hill had to be close due to snow instability. Significantly on the way back from the hill I noticed that the temps on the car thermometer were 14/15 degrees.

We went to the Old Side and found that Bear was starting to get soft straight out of the gate at 9. We tried SunnySide shoulder and were probably one run too early as it was refrozen crud. China Wall was soft and easy skiing. We looped out into Cedar and found that Cruiser hadn't been groomed and was still very ribby but by lower Cedar Centre it was starting to get soft. I had intended to try Kangaroo but it was closed - can you believe that ?

Our final attempt to find something good on the Old Side was down Boom Ridge which was a mixture of slush and refrozen crud and very difficult to get a handle on. We decided to abandon the Old Side in favour of the New and ran out down Boomerang which was very much like Boom Ridge although maybe more going to slush in the sun.

On the New Side we found things getting very slushy and closures starting even in the morning. By the time we got there we had already lost Lift Line, Big Bang, Sib Ridge, Knot Chutes and the I bowl. We had runs off Polar Peak in the chutes through Grand Pappa Bear, Barely Legal and Pappa Bear a few times over which were all slushy big bumps before running to base. For an early lunch.

The reason for the early lunch was that today was the Cardboard Derby. This is where competitors have to build down hill racers out of  cardboard and duck tape and race them down the hill to a target near the base. It was great fun with some incredible machines that must have taken hours to build and some that were no more than a cardboard box. As usual there were spills, wrecks, laughs and fun for everyone.

We headed up the New Side only to find that the continued softening had cause Patrol to close the chutes off Polar and the Reverse Traverse so that the only way down from that side of Currie Bowl was the Polar Coaster (or the Crusty Chute) and then Currie Powder and then the Gilmar Gully all of which were very soft and mushy. We looped this twice and then it was time to become world record holders.

Straight up - this afternoon, just before 4 o'clock mountain time Lynda and myself and 552 other people set a new world record which was overseen and confirmed by the Guiness Book of Records. The record was for the most people drinking a shot from the longest shot ski in the world. They had put 120 skis together joined end to end and stuck 554 shot glasses too what was then about a 600 ft long ski. The glasses were filled with Jagermeister and on the given signal we all took a shot simultaniously by tipping up the 600ft ski. As I said it was officially a world record and we were all joint holders.

After that it was time for beers to celebrate a great fun day where the skiing was either scratchy or slushy but we had fun despite the skiing rather than because of it. Tomorrow may not be much better in terms of conditions. It may also be a short or non existent report as we are booked in at 11 for the legendary Lizard Creek Brunch which will only give us two hours skiing before (and if I am any judge of these brunches) none afterwards - let's see, it's only two days a year that I ditch skiing for eating at lunch time, the other being Christmas.