Day 8 nothing really new to say

That about sums it up as with conditions just about the same as they have been all week and only the same runs open on the hill there is very little to say except everything has got just that bit worse as you would expect. Anyone who knows me knows that I wouldn't let a little matter like lack of material prevent me from having at least some kind of say on what is happening.

Once again overnight temps stayed high and it was +4 on the deck this morning and as we drove to the hill. During the day we had plus temps all day but a cooling trend set in and by last run I would have thought it was about +1 up the hill and the surfaces which have been melting for 5 days were starting to set up. As we drove away from the hill we had +2 in the valley which probably means minus temps at the top of the hill for the first time this week and it could be the start of the end of the Pineapple Express that has dominated the weather this week.

Overnight it rained and the rain once again had it's effect over all of the hill reducing the base to 85 cms. The hill is now in a sorry state with bare patches on most of the lower mountain and all the runs needing attention to navigate between the bare patches. Very little was open with the New Side closed again. On that subject I am told (surprise surprise) that the Timber Chair will be repaired in time for the weekend crowds, anyone want to bet a jug of beer that it will need to be taken out of service on Monday when they have gone ? At least we should get two days up in White Pass to see what conditions are like.

On the Old Side Lizard was open out to Dancer and Cedar to Trillum. This tells an artificially optimistic story as within those boundaries many (you might say most) runs were closed due to poor coverage and many that were open had bare patches and some very twiggy sections. During the day things got worse as it rained most of the morning and the marginal conditions on all the runs became more marginal as a combination of rain and warm temps eroded the skiing surface.

Just like yesterday I set up a loop of Bear Chair, Bow Trees and then alders, Bear Chair, chutes into Cedar and then the trees to the right of Cruiser, Haul Back, Lower Linda's (getting very sketchy but lots of moose tracks to be seen), Boom Chair and Sunny Side shoulder to Bear Load. It took about an hour and was very sketchy in places, particularly in Sunny Side where the lack of available terrain meant that I was more or less skiing a GS track of my own line as it was the only way through the alders.

We did a few variations via Bear main run and North Ridge/ Emily's but to be quite honest we were scratching around looking for something to do. As I said the final run down Bear showed conditions setting up in the colder temps.

No one seems to know what the future holds. There is general agreement that it will get colder and we will have some precip but apart from that there is no consensus. We may have a huge dump of snow on the back of this weather system (which we desperately need) or it may just get colder which would make for brutal icy and rocky conditions with no coverage. No need to say which I hope for.

A personal message to my next door neighbour who I know sometimes reads this blog. You have left your back deck light on which is starting to annoy us when we are in the hot tub. If you are not down this weekend I will remove the bulb and leave it on your deck to save you money and me aggravation. Good beers in the Griz tonight and hockey tomorrow.