Day 76 what the hell else is there to say

Just like yesterday (and the day before, and the day before ad nauseam) today was just the same conditions and as the heading implies I am running out of things to say which as anyone who knows me will tell you is all but an impossibility. I must apologise for the lack of Irish input into the blog as was promised yesterday. One of my buddies didn't ski today, he went for a hike instead and the other doesn't feel sufficiently moved to make a contribution so you are all just stuck with me, perhaps we will have better luck tomorrow.

As I said it was same old, same old. The temps were -5 on the way to the hill and a couple of degrees cooler up top. During the day things warmed up to a couple of degrees above zero at the base but remained firmly rooted below zero on top so nothing (and I mean absolutely nothing) softened during the day. It was not quite as bluebird as yesterday with a haze in the morning turning to clear skis in the afternoon and then reverting to cloud cover by the close of play. Needless to say there was no new snow so what we had remained bullet hard, and quite honestly not much better on the groomers which had been scoured by a fairly strong wind/

We went to the Old Side where like all of yesterday the off piste runs in the Old Side Triangle were closed due to the hard icy conditions. On the way up we noted that the colder weather had allowed for some snow making low down so that the ski outs (particularly on the New Side) were better but way short of anything that could be called good. We ran around Lizard and Cedar Bowls all morning which were fully open across as far as Snake Ridge and provided some ok skiing on all of the groomers but no off piste opportunities. We went to the New Side/

On the New Side everything in White Pass was hard and icy and slick where it had been groomed and ugly where it hadn't. Polar Peak was open but with Shale Slope closed so the only way down was the Coaster which was a mix of hard groomed ice and rocks. We did a couple of not very inspiring laps before heading for lunch via Currie Powder (super slick with some blow in to turn on) Trespass Trail (ok) Diamond Back (getting a bit slick and scraped out) Summer Road (ok as long as you turned on the edges) Lower Sib Ridge (skiing very well but a bit twiggy in places) and the Falling Star ski out which was rather brown but skiing very mellow.

In the afternoon we went back to the Old Side and just had a repeat of the morning with the groomers hard and icy but ok in places. With no off piste available we headed back to the New Side. We just had time for two Currie Loops (Polar was simply a case of the juice not being worth the squeeze) where it was much as before with the exception that Currie Powder was getting much slicker and with less blow in as the day went on -  still loads of challenging fun if you don't mind going sideways about as fast as you are going forward. Just time for a slick White Pass loop and then another Currie bowl run to base (exactly like before but slicker) and then beers.

A quiet night in after last night's partying at the pub and particularly as it looks like we may be getting some minor precip in the next couple of days - as they say this season, 2cms is the new 10. Let's see, and who knows we might be getting the Irish perspective tomorrow. Sorry the report is so brief but as I said at the outset there are only so many ways you can say"hard icy slick ugly conditions with no new snow".