Day 2 Still pretty good

Yes, today wasn't as good as yesterday, but then it was never going to be, but it still was a pretty good day by any definition.

Overnight we had about 4/5 cms of new snow which tended to fill everything in and at the very least made everything thing look very pretty and wintery. On the way to the hill temps once again were -1 and a few degrees colder up top. During the day temps got up to just over zero at the base but remained a round -2 at the top giving us some well preserved snow. It was overcast for most of the day but during the morning it socked in at the top of the hill and the fog line moved down the hill as the day went on. By late afternoon flurries had started all over the hill and continued into the evening.

I went to the New Side to see if there had been much traffic since yesterday. All of White Pass was open and I spent most of the morning looping back through Surprise Trees where there were still many untracked lines with the new 5 cms of snow on top of yesterday's 17 cms giving some great skiing. All the rest of White Pass was tracked up but not tracked out powder and the return to the load was via Highline, Heartland, Pillow Talk and all lines in between. The Gun bowl was in particularly good shape with deep powder in the lines back under the White Pass chair.

About half way through the morning I dropped Anaconda Glades which were tracked but with some super steep and untracked lines in the chutes just over the first hump. The only way out was ski to base through Gilmar Trail and the Meadow. Now Gilmar Trail can be a bit sketchy in the best of conditions and today it was rather marginal. In it's favour I would say the snow had all the rocks covered so the only obstructions were wood in it's various forms but some parts were so woody that you could have put away your ski poles and used a chain saw to better effect.

I returned to White Pass via Puff Trees off the top of Timber and found they were very challenging being a mix of deadfall, powder and avi debris. The rest of the morning was spent looping White Pass and Surprise Trees as already described. Just once I pushed further into Triple Trees and found the top half to be totally awesome untracked deep powder. Unfortunately the lower half required serious bush whacking through some very tight and woody chutes before finally dropping on to Trespass Trail.

For lunch I headed down through Currie Glades off the Polar Load and found some great soft tracked snow all the way through the Glades. The ski out was again through Gilmar Trail which was no better or worse than earlier in the day.

After lunch I headed over to the Old Side as I had heard that they had opened Cedar High Traverse. The rumour proved to be true so I skied the trees in Cedar Centre which were pretty good and very like Curried Glades but rather less skied and with slightly deeper snow. The return was via Boom Guts which was still tracked but ok if you could dodge the alders.

To finish the day I headed back to the New Side and looped Surprise Trees via the ever excellent Gun Bowl and alternated this with a drop down Anaconda and a return through Trespass Trail - the only trail on the hill which is up hill in both directions. At the end of the day we chose to finish with Currie Glades and Gilmar Trail just like the last run before lunch and just like that run the upper part was good tracked powder and the lower part rather sketchy.

After a few beers in the Griz it was time for more beer with buddies at their house then home. As I sit here looking out it is continuing to snow and we will probably have a modest accumulation overnight. Temps are -1 so the snow should stay in good shape and tomorrow could be yet another very good day for early season.