Day 122 Plan B

As avid followers will know from yesterday's post today had been planned to be a couple of hours light skiing followed by brunch and then the afternoon vegging on the couch in front of the TV as my Easter celebrations. This had pre supposed that the brunch was one of those all you can eat jobs that we usually get. In the event I hadn't read the small print (or any print come to that) of the Rusty Edge brunch and it was not a buffet so we just had a normal meal of eggs bennie with all the trimmings. The long and short of this is that I was not bloated after the meal and didn't need to wash it down with loads of beer to keep the food going down so that I was ok to ski in the afternoon and as a result we had a pretty normal day.

There was only 1 cm of snow overnight but some had accumulated yesterday and there was also some blow in around so that we had a reasonable smattering of soft snow on yesterday's hard base. It was -2 on the way to the hill and during the morning temps stayed down around zero for most of the morning in overcast conditions. In the afternoon things cleared up so that we had some sunny intervals and temps at White Pass load rose to about + 5 and even at Polar load it was +2.

We went to the New Side and had a very mellow drop down Lift Line with soft blow in covering a firm base. We had few loops back round White Pass and found the conditions to be a hard base under some dust in Gun Bowl, Quite Right, Highline and surprisingly, best of all Surprise Trees. We were surprised to see that Polar peak was open as conditions were socked in. Viz was very poor and only the Coaster Side was open. The ski down to the ridge was ok but the Coaster really sucked as hard ice and smooth as well. The cut out to under the lift was very sketchy but the final turns below the lift were very soft and deep. After one loop we ran to base through Easter which was hard but ok - time for our early brunch.

In the afternoon it was back up the New Side to put in loops of once back through White Pass (Surprise Trees were nice and getting soft) once back through Polar Peak (the drop under Mama bear was really soft and deep) the traverse to Easter (which was much repaired due to the excellent work of Ski Patrol) and then Easter which was getting bit softer and was good challenging skiing all day. The ski out through Lizard remained bumpy and slushy and the only skiing anywhere on the lower hill. After 3 of these loops which took the best part of an hour each it was time for the final run off the hill.

After very little internal debate I decided to hit Easter one last time and yet again it took an ok edge on a firm base all the way down. During the day I heard some terrible reports of how bad the Reverse Traverse was but personally I just don't see it. It was a bit hard and icy in places but it has been so much worse at times in the past and today the whole Easter loop experience was not easy, but by no means as tough as I have seen it.

So after a fairly full day's skiing it was time to head to the (very quiet) Griz bar for a couple of beers with buddies and then home to catch the tail end of the Easter movies on TCM in the form of Easter Parade - when can Fred Astair and Judy Garland be anything but awesome. Maybe some precip in the outlook but with bluebird skis and temps of +5 on the deck I am not optimistic.