Ok, sorry this is so late but straight from skiing we went out with our good buddies Rod and Karen to the Bridge Bistro and had and excellent meal and good beer which took up a lot of time. Actually it would have taken up a bit less time if they had been more prompt with the bill (why do eateries seem so reluctant to take your money after you have eaten) but none the less a good evening.
Today was a pure bluebird day with only the odd wisp of cloud. It was classic spring skiing with temps of -3 on my deck as we had our morning coffee which had risen to +3 by the time we reached the hill. There was no real atmospheric warming today so simply where the sun hit the surfaces it melted and where it didn't it stayed pretty hard. By the end of the day it was getting really warm (+12) in the direct sunlight but in the shade it still remained icy.
We went to the Old Side and found that not much had been groomed and where it hadn't it was very hard and ribby. We took several runs down Bear which wasn't showing much sign of softening but was at least groomed. This suited me as I was testing the new +2 binding position for my DPS Wailers and have to say I found this much more to my liking. After a while we tried Arrow which was ungroomed and a big mistake as it had not softened and we had to consider replacing the fillings that we had shaken loose on the way down.
Next we dropped Cruiser which was still hard but at the very bottom in the direct sun things got a little soft. In a fit of optimism we dropped Kangaroo and found that the skiing on the left in the sun was just about ok with the hard bumps softening on top. I noticed one set of tracks in ahead of me only to realise that these were my tracks from yesterday and it looks like no one had been in there since I skied it yesterday morning.
After that we took a risk on Boomerang and found it going soft on top of a firm surface. The same was true of Boom Ridge which we hit dead right and we continued to lap these runs several times until they started to go mushy. We decided to try the New Side.
Lift Line and Big Bang looked very crunchy so we didn't try them and this seems like a good call as a run down Puff which is much the same aspect proved to be challenging enough with icy bumps. We looped White Pass a couple of times finding Gun Bowl crust on mush so ok where it hadn't been skied a treacherous where it had. Highline was rather icy but ok and the I bowl was interesting after we worked our way across and avi debris trail under the Cheese Grater into the less tracked stuff beyond - like the Gun bowl, great in the smooth and not so great in the tracked. We ran to a very late lunch through Currie Powder and Gilmar Trail (the sign line is still down on the far side of Currie Powder) which was crunchy surprising low down all the way to about half way down Gilmar Trail.
After lunch there was just time for a couple of laps of Gun Bowl (starting to get really soft) I bowl still difficult where tracked up) Trespass Trail and Diamond Back (never really soft and actually quite icy in the final pitch) to get us to a final White Pass groomer rip.
We finished with a rip down Currie Powder which was a mixture of soft and crust as speeds which were pretty much on the edge inspired by some young lads setting off just ahead of us and we feeling we had to show them that the old men still knew how to rip - pathetic really but what else is there to do on a Thursday. Beers on the deck in the sun and then out for the evening, Looks like the only way we are going to get Skydive is the sidestep traverse from Lizard so watch this space.
Friday, April 11, 2014
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