Friday, December 26, 2014

Day 21 the best Christmas Day's skiing ever

First of all apologies again for the late report but we had an outstanding Christmas Day's skiing followed by a couple of beers in the Griz Bar followed by and out standing Christmas meal with our friends Dan and Ruth with way too much more to drink than would seem humanly possible. This all may affect the quality of today's report although nothing could affect the quality of todays skiing which was simply outstanding,

We arrived at the hill a bit late due to Christmas Eve celebrations and did not get skiing until 10. This was largely due to sitting up on Christmas Eve and watching It's a Wonderful Life while drinking Jameson's Irish Whiskey.

On the way to the hill it was a bit overcast with temps of -5. There had been snow overnight but only 4 cms giving a light covering on yesterday's awesome powder. Up the mountain it got colder (-10 at the top) and throughout the day things didn't change much so that it was -6 as we drove away from the hill.

We went to the Old Side as it was traditional on Christmas day and had a good run down Cedar Ridge which was untracked on last nights snow but quite deeply tracked from the day before. It was ok deep tracked snow skiing. I looked in the top of Kangaroo from Haul Back and thought that it was unskiable due to the un cut 10 ft high Cedars. I have been told that the hill is hoping for Kangaroo to die from natural causes and I hope I am wrong on this, any informed opinion would be welcome. Having taken the Cedar Trail across the lower section of Kangaroo it looked pretty good and I dropped in with only one board track ahead of me - not having been tracked all season due to closures it was just awesome snow, The best on the hill bit with loads of twigs if you wanted to do anything other than straight line this stuff.

We looped Boomerang and then like yesterday headed to the New Side where we figured the big waves would be. As we arrived at the top of White Pass we were told that the Polar Peak Chair was just opening. This was the most spectacular skiing with a view from the top of Polar where the inversion meant that there was cloud below but bluebird conditions above and just the most awesome view in the world. The chutes remained closed but you could get the lower parts with a hard cut left. and the Polar Coaster hadn't been groomed so it was all just deep soft snow. We looped about 6 times before the rest of the hill became aware that Polar was open and we even got to drop the Clown Chutes a few times which were all great powder. Lynda voted the lower chutes the most awesome skiing so far this season and who am I to disagree.

We headed out to the Saddles and found Corner Pocket just great but icy and underneath awesome untracked powder. We cut back into Easter which was still pretty good on yesterday's soft base. Next loop was low Saddle for the first time this season with the usual ice turn in the top but with good untracked snow in the chutes to the right with face shots all the way down and a great exit through Easter.
I'm kind of losing track of what we did next but I do remember taking the Brain where I did have some great lines and untracked powder but also some dead fall and some serious bush whacking. I got a whipper in the face and blood all over my cheek but that's just the price you pay.

There was loads more stuff that I can't remember but of course I finished with a run down Skydive a few minutes earlier than usual as it was Christmas, It was still in good shape.

So we had a Christmas Day where we got Polar Peak, The Saddles, and all the skiing underneath was pretty good. I guess that's as good as it gets. The snow on the hill is in great shape and more is forecast for the weekend.

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