Day 87 a metre of snow in 24 hours

Now of course we haven't had a metre of snow in 24 hours, nor are we going to get it but I just thought I would stick this in as a title to see if anyone was paying attention.

Over night we had no new snow and it was cold. Reports suggested it got as low as -16 at one time or another but all I know as a fact is that it was -13 on the deck when we got up, -11 on the drive to the hill and obviously it must have got way colder than that up the hill during the night. There was a light cloud covering first thing with a forecast it would become more cloudy during the day - it will come as no surprise to anyone that in this year when the forecasters having been getting it very wrong even by their own none too high standards. that the cloud cleared and we had a bluebird day for the afternoon. Temps stayed low up the hill with -5 at the various loads and a lot colder allowing for the wind chill (some said as low as -20) up Polar Peak As we drove away tonight it was zero in the valley and as a result nothing got even close to softening during the day. For what it is worth the base is back at 139 cms, any bets on the fact that this could be the first year in living memory when the base never exceeds 2 metres ?

We went to the New Side because I had heard that Puff had been groomed and I wanted to see that. The grooming was a little erratic and the light flattened half way down and as a result I skied at speed into icy bumps, stacked it big time and came away with some really big grazes and bruises on the inside of my right leg. As a matter of interest my buddy Miles stacked it in exactly the same spot in the afternoon but got away with a 3/4 yard sale and no major injuries.

We looped White Pass several times through Quite Right and Highline and even once through Hot Chocolate which allowed us to ski Puff again and get it right this time. After a while we went to Polar Peak where we found it to be clear and very cold with everything hard and the Coaster particularly slick and uninviting. We did two loops but were frozen and ran to base via the usual route - Currie Powder ( pretty slick) Trespass Trail (ok) Diamond Back ( much improved with some soft snow groomed in) Summer Road (now getting a little icy so we are just straight lining it) Lower Sib Ridge (now reduced to just three turns and some very high speed skiing)  and then over to Elk to ski the Old Side.

On the Old Side we poked around Bear, Arrow, Bascade etc and found everything hard and groomed with no chance of off piste skiing. In Cedar Bowl we had two loops of Cedar Centre and Cruiser finding that despite warning signs Lower Cedar Centre was not as bad and icy as official signs would have you believe. Lower North Ridge and Lower Linda's we all slightly better than they have been and were good fast skiing - we headed for a late lunch.

In the afternoon it was back up the New Side in cold but sunny conditions with nothing softening. Drops to White Pass load were always via the semi groomed Puff if only to make sure that there was no hang over from the mornings stack. We did more fast loops back through White Pass before heading up Polar Peak for two loops, (always traversing and running back under the chair) and finding the Coaster getting slicker than ever. After the usual run to base we were back up Polar for 4 more loops, this time majoring on the soft (well not that soft actually) snow to the skiers left of the Polar Chair.

We just had time for a high speed run to base (usual route) a high speed White Pass loop via a very slick Heartland before running off the hill through Down Right which skied ok but where the light flattened out it really sucked.

After last nights celebrations it is good just to have a couple of beers with friends in the Griz and a quiet night in. Of course we are supposed to be getting snow tonight but having seen to sky at sunset  I am not optimistic, let's hope I am wrong. Fingers crossed.