First of all I have to apologise for the late post tonight. It isn't for the usual reason of having drunk too much beer with buddies but for the rather more uplifting reason that we have been out finishing off Christmas preparations. We now have all decorations and lights up, presents bought and wrapped, food and drink ready to go so let the jollifications commence.
Today's heading does not refer to some really generous offer by the hill but instead it refers to the fact that after 12 days skiing the season pass has paid for itself. Of course this depends on the fact that the price of the pass is calculated at earlybird prices and the daily cost of skiing is undisccounted which is a pretty safe bet even at this time of year. So with the pass covered it is time to sit back and enjoy the rest of the season.
We had about 8 cms of snow overnight and starting temps were -6 on the way to the hill. Things stayed pretty cold all day with temps a couple of degrees colder up the hill and still down at -5 as we drove away tonight. It was overcast with light flurries to start the day and as the morning wore on we had an inversion with clearer skies on top and valley cloud - we even had some angel dust at the top of the cloud level. This didn't last long and by lunch time it was starting to sock in and the flurries returned. There were no great accumulations but it has been snowing quite consistently in the valley all evening and with the low temps we might have some fresh snow for the morning.
The result of last night's activity was that most of the tracking had filled in although it still showed through and the only truly untracked snow was what had not yet been skied in the season. As promised last night I went to the Old Side and had a great morning's skiing over there. First drop was Snake Ridge all the way down which only had a couple of tracks in and the newly cleared shoulder was excellent tracked powder. Kangaroo was interesting if only because of the appearance of a moose on the lower section who quickly became bored with skiers and headed off down the run and into the trees below. If this is the same moose that we encountered on the New Side last week then she is moving in the right direction away from the ski hill and will avoid conflict which could have unfortunate results for both skiers and moosey alike.
The rest of the morning was spent looping in no particular order and some runs several times - Linda's, Boomerang, Boom Ridge, Cedar Ridge, Kangaroo, King Fir and Snake Ridge. Everything was nice deep tracked powder and there was nothing you would say was anything but good skiing. A special mention has to go the the Fish Bowl which I dipped into for the first time this season. I only hit the Poppa Chutes just beyond the boundary fence and cut back into Redtree (not easy to find the cut back this early in the season) but the snow was thigh deep and well worth the excursion.
After lunch I went to the New Side in the hope that we would get Polar Peak for the first time and although it did look promising for some time Polar remains a treat yet to be experienced. We ran -
White Pass - a straight run back through the Gun Bowl and under the Chair still had lots of fresh snow.
Decline/ Window Chutes - Great packed powder in the top of Decline and Window chutes remain lightly tracked and deep.
Siberia Ridge - In great shape and very lightly tracked. It was so good that I was tempted the drop the face in the choke but eventually opted for the right/left shift. Very good powder.
Cougar Glades/ Stag Leap - still lots of untracked lines to be found in Cougar and lower Stag a bit more skiable than yesterday.
Touque Chutes/Spinal Tap - rapidly becoming one of my favourite combinations due to the nice lines in the chute and the fact that Spinal Tap remains very deep unskied snow in many places.
The Brain/Lower Decline - not a combination I had tried before and upper Brain was spectacularly deep snow particularly in the roll above Megasaurus. Lower Decline is still the most mellow of the Big Three.
For last run I hiked up to Mitchy Chutes rather than drop from Timber through Lift Line as I had been doing all day. Unfortunately I got tempted by Big Bang which had some lovely steep untracked skiing off the Lazy Locals traverse. The very last run of course was Skydive which remains great terrain hugging skiing most of the way down and just a bit twiggy in the bottom section.
Beers with a few buddies in the Griz and with everyone having some good stories about the day. Looking out on the deck it is still snowing at about -6 so who knows what tomorrow may bring.
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
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