Monday, March 16, 2015

Day 102 the best day of the season so far

Sorry for the late post but today did require some fairly special celebrations which only now are starting to subside. When we left off yesterday it was wet snow on the upper mountain, rain at the base and a promise of the snow line coming down the hill overnight. Well, things worked out better than expected and we found the whole of the valley covered in about 15 cms of fresh snow. The figures showed that we got about 65 cms of snow out of the current weather cycle on the hill from when it started yesterday to when it finished around midday today.

On the way to the hill today it was -1 which meant that the snow at the base was quite heavy but good skiing. Up top it was fantastic hero powder on a high moister base from yesterday which gave the most amazing bottomless powder skiing all over the hill. During the morning temps stayed below zero keeping the snow in good condition but by mid afternoon temps were a degree or two above zero so the snow was becoming heavier.

When we arrived at the hill we found that Timber was not running due to an unfortunate incident which I do not intend to elaborate upon here. We lined up at 9 o'clock at Elk and got up to Bear just as it opened. We ran down Bear in knee deep untracked powder which was so sweet. Next we hit out to Cedar Ridge and got there just after the fence dropped. Cedar Ridge was the most awesome deep powder all the way down - I have said it before but when you are skiing on skis like the DPS Wailers in those conditions you can just point your skis anywhere you want to go and fly off anything - it just feels like you have super powers.

We looped back through Boom which was soft and easy powder skiing and still plenty of untracked lines. That was the morning for us, just dropping Cedar Ridge in one of the dozens of available untracked lines and then coming back to Bear via Boom or Bear Chutes which all had great untracked deep powder in various lines and chutes. Somewhere in there I did ski Lower Kangaroo just for the craic (I was told off today for my spelling yesterday - actually I am well aware of the correct spelling but I was not sure my readership would be) and it was great snow but the bushes to snow ratio was rather wrong. I only got out after some fairly serious bushwhacking - and I noticed mine were the only tracks in there and guess likely to remain so.

After huge amounts of fun, powder and face shots on the Old Side we got word that the New Side had opened so over we went. We arrived at Timber top just after they had opened Lift Line and had a mega powder rip down, pretty well straight lining it all the way to White Pass load. After about a 20 minute wait White Pass opened and although we only had the core with the zig zag closed we had great untracked powder. First run down the Gun Bowl was good and straight lining Quite Right by the left fence was powder free riding at it's best, crazy fast with big air on the rollers.

After that we just looped White Pass with variations of the Gun Bowl and Quite Right/ Heartland/ Highline Trees etc. Although some of the lines were quite tight you could always find untracked snow between the trees if you were prepared to put your skis in the fall line and that is what we did. Just one time we pushed out as far as Milky Way Trees which were ok but with big windrows and so much snow that you more or less had to straight line it to keep going. The good news was that this got us back to the top of Puff which was big soft powder bumps and very mellow skiing.

They dropped the fence on the zig zag  quite late in the afternoon and we cut into Knot Chutes which was our only bad call of the day. The chutes had no snow left after the blasting and cutting and we skied and icy avi debris trail most of the way through the Tight Knot. Surprise Trees made up for all with some great untracked powder which was a little heavy in places but giving good face shots. For the rest of the afternoon we looped mostly the Gun Bowl through various lines many of which held deep powder, particularly in the more challenging lines. Surprise Trees, always looking for, and often finding, untracked lines in between the tight trees. Just once we hit Pillow Talk to do some jumps off under the lift and had some very fast and spectacular lines.

Last run and we took a run out to Triple Trees which was untouched in the top but very ugly lower down and we had to work hard to get back onto Trespass Trail. One on the joys of a big powder day like today is that many of the runs that had previously been closed suddenly become very skiable and we took full advantage of this on our run off. We even found snow in Power Line which saved us going all the way out to Lower Sib Ridge.

Obviously loads of beer while watching the heli bombing of the Lizard head wall and everyone making plans for a big day tomorrow. At one time it did look like things were going to warm up today but we dodged the bullet and it was zero temp as we drove away from the hill quite late after the excellent beer and burger for 10 bucks at the Rusty Edge. Totally knackered after skiing from first bell to last without any kind of break whatsoever - must get to bed ready for tomorrow.

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