Day 98 a public service announcement

In the spirit of helpfulness and cooperation (for which I am famous) I thought I would direct the first paragraph tonight to whomsoever it is on the hill that is responsible for maintaining web cams. In the past couple of weeks the web cam at the Bear load has accidentally been tilted so that instead of showing the conditions around the Bear load (which it has done for the past several years) it is pointing up the hill and just showing the snow on the Lizard Head Wall. I am sure now that I have made you aware of this problem things will soon be corrected. Of course there are a few cynical conspiracy theorists who are suggesting that the camera has been deliberately re-angled so it doesn't show the really ugly conditions around the Bear load but I will have no truck with such suggestions, it is outrageous to suggest that anyone could act in such a devious way.

Today was really strange. Overnight temps stayed high so that on the way to the hill it was +8 which is about the warmest starting temp I can ever remember. It was overcast and threating rain which thank goodness never turned up and stayed that way all day. Temps all over the hill were around +5 or just above and didn't move all day giving atmospheric warming all over the hill. The result was that surfaces softened all day irrespective of their aspect.

As I had a 90% Old Side day yesterday I decided to go straight to the New Side as I had the feeling that everything would have softened in the plus temps over night and the skiing would be good. I was right and as a result I spent the whole day on the New Side except for the end of the loops which spat me back into Lizard Bowl as part of the ski out.

First drop of the day was from Timber Top to White Pass base through Puff where the bumps were now taking a nice edge and as a result this was the only way down we took all day in ever softening conditions. We looped White Pass many times as both Knot Chutes and Polar Peak were closed and remained so all day. The top of White Pass was totally socked in although by about the fourth loop through the cloud base had lifted so that all we had to contend with was flat light. Loops included the Gun Bowl (soft bumps every time) I bowl (ditto) Surprise Trees ( rather varied but soft for the most part) Quite Right Bumps (getting soft) and the lines down under the lift which were also soft and ok despite no direct sunlight.

We could delay it no more and we headed out in Currie Bowl fearing that the sign line would be down on the far side of Currie Powder and we would be compelled to run back to base on groomers. Our fears were unfounded as the Reverse Traverse was open with a clear hand written sign to say that Easter Bowl was open but the Big 3 were closed, so guess what, we skied Easter for the rest of the day and stayed out of the Big 3 - it's not really rocket science. Easter was ok on the parts that had been hard but just like the other places I have skied over the past few days like Skydive (when it was clearly open) the old sift in the troughs had firmed up and was slabby and grabby. Over all ok skiing but you did have to pay attention.

We went back and had a couple more White Pass loops as before and then ran to lunch through Easter which was still skiing the same. I remain puzzled at the closure of Freeway which is the obvious exit from Easter and has good coverage but as it was closed I did not ski it no matter how much sense it made to do so. I skied out every time along a sign line above China Might directing us into some very marginal cat track skiing, but if that is what they want who am I to question.

In the afternoon it was just a series of New Side Easter loops with the occasional White Pass loop back through the Gun Bowl and Surprise Trees - both ok firm snow taking an edge. The one mistake I made was to see if the Easter opening included Lone Fir. The side step up was open but when I got to the top the chutes were closed so I couldn't ski them - that's what closed means. I did have a run down Cornice Chute to the Skydive Traverse which was soft and although not long was probably the best skiing of the day. The day finished with a final Easter loop so late that I actually got in there after sweep.

Beers of course and temps of +12 as we drove away from the hill. Took advantage of the warm dry conditions to get all the Christmas lights off the deck and the trees outside so that's another grotty job done for another year. They are forecasting sun for tomorrow and rain for the weekend - don't know which will finish the hill off fasted, let's see.