The reason today was so expensive was that Lynda demoed some Volkel Kikus from Quest and liked them. When she returned them they were having a one day only sale of 50% pricing for skis and bindings - the rest is rather inevitable and from tomorrow she will be skiing around on a new pair of Kikus which from memory have about 109 cms under foot which is a pretty big step up from her Sally Geishas. Still my new DPS Wailers have 112 under foot so I am in no position to comment.
Overnight things didn't get really cold and temps were +2 on the way to the hill and +1 at the base. The snow report called no new snow but it was snowing as we got to the hill and continued off and on for most of the morning. By the end of the cycle I guess we had about 5 cms of fresh on yesterday's base and with no hard overnight freeze the undersurface remained soft and taking an edge - in summary these were pretty good conditions. In the afternoon it cleared up a bit without ever getting sunny so we had some warming at the base but no real direct sun melt up above and the skiing surfaces on the upper mountain stayed at more or less winter conditions. Just for the record the base is 375 cms which gives us great coverage and should be god for the remaining 8 days of the season.
We went to the New Side and after a few laps of White Pass in pretty poor light we did three loops to base through Anaconda Glades which were very sweet and where the only problem was beating your slough out of the chutes. Bootleg Glades skied way better than we expected and only started to get heavy just above the Gilmar Trail. I took a trip out along the Reverse Traverse to see if there were good viewing points for the final of the Monster event (which there were) and if anything was happen (which there wasn't due to weather) and then ran to base down Currie Creek which skied very nicely in the new snow on a fairly soft comparatively warm base.
We hung about at the base to watch the Monster finish but the event was postponed. We took Elk Chair up to Bears Den to see what the view was like but we weren't impressed so we headed over to Low Saddle and arrived about 5 minutes before kick off with great view of the Head Wall. Seeing this race makes me realise where I am going wrong. I can ski the Lizard Head Wall by turning all the way down, what I didn't realise was that the best way to do it was to straight line it as today's winner did. An awesome display of just how much better these extreme skiers are than average Joes like ourselves.
With Lizard Bowl clear we were given the green to drop Easter despite the sign line and had a great rip in untracked snow on a soft base. Next loop I hiked Lone Fir which was hardly touched and had a very nice run through the chute and an even better one on the soft snow in the fan below - lower Easter remained in good shape.
We just had time for a White Pass loop which was starting to soften of the south facing slopes. Perhaps it's worth mentioning that all runs from Timber Top to White Pass base was on the near side of Big Bang in very nice lightly tracked quite deep snow which we ripped in GS turns although I am sure that there are those who would say I was struggling.
Final run was down Skydive where I really threw the skis at the run as I was back on my old Shoguns and it is only after a week or so on the bigger banana skis that you realise just how easy it is to throw short mid size planks around and get away with it. Skydive was good until about half way down the final pitch when it became rather sticky and heavy.
We had some early evening beers in the Griz and left ahead of the full Monster party tonight which promises to be quite an event. Now settling down for a quiet night in and to prepare myself for the final week of the season.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
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