As regular readers may recall we were promised 10-15 cms of fresh overnight by the forecasters. Well, not for the first time they got it wrong - we had 32 cms of new snow over night. Better still it just puked snow (and I don't use the term inadvisedly) all day so I would guess that we had at least another 25 cms during the day giving us over 60 cms in 24 hours and making this the biggest snow cycle of the winter - as I said, not bad for the closing weekend.
The snow was pretty wet low down but as we headed to the hill in temps +1 we were optimistic that up top it would be rather dryer. When we got to the hill we found that power had failed in the day lodge and so had to get ready using cell phone lights to open the combination padlocks on our lockers which wasn't as easy as it sounds. The fact that we were made late didn't matter as only the Deer and Elk chairs were running to start with as most of the hill was shut down due to the massive avi risk from this huge dump of snow on a fairly indifferent base.
We took a couple of trips up Deer just to get some snow under our skis and found that really deep wet snow doesn't ski so easy on gentle slopes. Timber eventually opened and we found Lift Line closed but everything to skiers left open - we hit Puff Trees which were just awesome, hardly had to turn in the deep powder and almost choked on the over the head face shots.
White Pass was closed which we assumed was just a temporary hitch. We were wrong, after several delayed opening times were we told that White Pass would not be opening today and the dismantling of the maze seemed to make the point. We just spent the morning off Timber hitting Puff Trees, Lower Lift Line, Black Cloud, and all trees and chutes in between. Whilst the terrain was limited the skiing was just awesome in hero powder and as the snow continued to fall the conditions didn't deteriorate to any great extent. Another plus was that whilst we had a bit of a line up to begin with, after that there were no line ups so no delays in getting to the powder.
In the afternoon I don't think I played it very well. On the New Side Lift Line and Big Bang had being ski cut but I decided to try my luck on the Old Side. I am told that when Big Bang and the side step into Siberia Ridge opened it was just awesome, and I missed it, well that's the way it goes. The Old Side didn't suck but a lot of the openings had taken place an hour or two earlier. That having been said the rate of fill in from the snow fall was enough to guarantee great skiing wherever you went.
I just poked around the Old Side all afternoon with hardly anyone there - Bear, Bear Chutes, Boomerang, Boom Ridge (twice) Linda's, Cedar Ridge (three times) King Fir etc.These were all that was available as Ceder Bowl was closed to the skiers left (even Alpine Way was closed) and the only stuff open in Lizard was Tower 6 trail and below. The sking was great soft powder getting a bit heavy lower down but still awesome for the second week in April.
Kangaroo deserves a special mention as it was great soft snow from top to bottom. I am told there were a couple of closed signs in the top but I didn't see them. As I came off the hill it was still snowing and continued to do so for a couple of hours after the lifts stopped turning. Tonight it is forecast to get cold which may work out really well because if it stabalizes the snow then we could get most of the hill open tomorrow for a spectacular closing day.
The entertainment events of the day were the Powder, Pedal, Paddle relay which I guess took place but as I was getting over the head face shots on the New Side when it should have happened I can't really comment. Similarly the band in the Plazza was Chilliwack but after a few minutes of listening I was so tired from the days skiing that I just sat in the Griz drinking beer - I guess they were pretty good as everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves.
So here we go with tomorrow as last day and everything pointing towards a spectacular powder day - lets see.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
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