Day 124 still pretty good

I am of course refering to the skiing and not the stupid decision to close the Griz Bar for a couple of days. The funny thing is that today was the final day for the Non Stop level 2 skiers and after their exams they were looking for somewhere to celebrate/drown their sorrows and of course they had no where to go. Anyone who understood the business would have seen this coming but the decisions on the opening/closing of the facilities on the hill are clearly being undertaken by people who's greatest contribution to the planet is to breath out carbon dioxide which is good for plants so you wouldn't expect anything like a sensible decision from them. So, having cost your employers a load of lost income what next guys?

The skiing was pretty good. The official web site said there was no new snow but later changed their mind to say we had about 11 cms of fresh which looked about right to me. We went to the New Side on the basis that the snow line looked as if it had stayed high. The conditions were overcast and +4 on the way to the hill. During the day the conditions fluctuated from full on winter on top, rain below and sun, becoming very warm and spring like in the last hour of the day. We had pretty well everything.

Lift Line gave a hint of what we could expect. It was soft powder at the top becoming quite wet and even crusty lower down. We looped White Pass about 4 times in great soft powder but becoming heavier as the temps rose to above zero. After while we decide to do a couple of loops out in Surprise and found just like the other day we were laying first tracks all the way across but this time rather than scratchy it was all a little mushy in places. In fact I was quite surprised how soft the snow was today even away from the direct sunlight.

After all our activity high up getting some great pwder skiing we had to look elsewhere and predictably we went to the Saddles. Corner Pocket was still showing tires but I did hit a high left line that allowed me to slide round the worst of the rubber. High Saddle was skiing like a groomer - ok a very steep tight groomer but nothing to frighten the horses. Low Saddle was just awesome - all the saddles had great soft powder underneath but Low had totally untracked chutes off to the skiers right - I guess it was all a function of hardly anyone being on the hill. Actually I didn't feel that I had skied Low in quite the tight controlled way that I liked so I gave it another go before lunch with much better results.

Down below the Saddles in the Dancer area nothing was groomed and at first it was a case of difficult skiing on a slush/crust surface. Whether it was the changing conditions or just the fact that we were getting more used to the conditions but as the day went on the lower skiing which had been challenging at first became easy soft mush skiing and I was staying in the mush as long as I could instead of exiting it at the first opportunity as had been the case early on - it was just a case of keeping up the speed and staying on top.

After lunch it was the Saddles High/Low/High/Low which were just as good as the morning until it was time for Skydive. I had mixed feelings about Skydive after the previous hard icey experiences but today it was soft if chunky skiing all the way down - hard word but ok.

After skiing we went to Kelsey's as we will tomorrow despite the Griz reopening. Many thanks for all the messages of support and confirmation that many of you will be taking a day off from the Griz to register your protest - remember, today they close the bars, tomorrow it will be the lifts, take action now to meet my target of hitting the income line by 2000 bucks as a shot across their bows.