Thursday, March 20, 2014

Day 22 Awesome

Not much point in expanding on the title - today was awesome, end of story. Ok, I will expand on the day just a bit.
Yesterday it snowed all day and by the end of the day we had great new coverage. Last night it snowed all night so that the hill reported 38 cms of fresh snow overnight on top of yesterday's snow. Today it snowed all day all over the hill - do I need to paint a picture. The snow was super deep everywhere and provided a powder day well up in the top 20 of all time.
On the way to the hill which was about half an hour earlier than normal to get in the line up early, it was about -2 and during the day it stayed at -4 or so up the hill and about zero at the base, oh, and did I mention , it snowed hard all the time. It was even snowing as we drove away although in the valley it was pretty wet snow. Actually it was lucky that the Patrol were blasting from 7 o'clock as we had a power outage in town and my alarm didn't go off - thanks to the Patrol early morning call.
We went to the New Side and stayed there all day. Some buddies of mine who skied the Old side tell me that there was restricted opening with only the Old Side Triangle but what was there was very good deep powder and very few people around. We lined up and got an early chair up Timber and had a magnificent rip down Puff Trees to White Pass Base.
It was a totally predictable opening pattern although I was quite touched by a couple who pointed out to me that as the sign board at Timber Base showed everything open then that is what we would find - bless. We got a Heartland Core opening followed by a Zig Zag drop which included Knot Chutes, the I bowl and Surprise Trees. All of these were awesome ( a word which you might find rather over used today) with deep powder and the base firm but only coming through in rare patches. The entrances in to Knot Chutes were cut high enough for you to be able to get all the way across if you aired it over a couple of rock bands. About 2 hours of the morning were taken up poking around getting great fresh lines and occasionally getting stuck in thigh deep snow which surprised even us. Best sight was a couple of boarders who decided to drop into the Toilet Bowl not realising that the reason the way in was untracked was because there was a big trek out - they may still be there for all I know.
We then got an Anaconda opening which was another spectacular rip through the chutes trying to beat out your own slough in thigh deep powder and a drop through Bootleg Glades which were similarly deep and soft. So good that we did it again although in the lower sections of Bootleg the new snow was on a very hard base which sometimes came through.
Around Lunch time they opened Currie Bowl which was a 250 person or more Chinese Downhill from the fence drop. We hit out along the low traverse (the Reverse Traverse was closed as were the Saddles) and got to the Big Three. After that it was Skydive, The Brain, Stag Leap and Toms Run in Currie loops for the rest of the afternoon. Just like with the earlier runs the upper hill stuff was just soft and awesome but lower down you had to be wary of the hard base even through what was now getting on towards 50 cms of fresh snow.
Last run of the day was through Skydive which we did in three sections. The first two were beautiful soft undulating tracked up powder and the last was deep soft snow on a hard base. I was getting a bit tired but then I had skied hard all day from first chair without a break of any kind all day so I guess that's allowed.
Lot's of beer in the Griz of course but tonight got downtown in time to get to Straight Line and fix up some demos of the DPS's 184 hybrids for tomorrow. Who knows if I like them I could be in there negotiating for a new pair tomorrow night. Still snowing !

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