Day 66 rather disappointing

In the same way that yesterday was much better than I expected today was a major disappointment. We had been promised 10-15 cms of fresh snow with cooling temps. Well. we got the cooling ok although nothing too severe but the new snow was recorded at 4 cms but quite frankly I didn't see anything like that and the best was bit of wind sift on a firm base. In other words in the new politically correct jargon we had champagne on ice and in the language that we all recognise we had dust on crust.

As stated we had a little precip over night that came down all over the hill as very light dusting.On the way to the hill it was +1 and gave the impression that we might be getting a bluebird day. In the event it clouded over and base temps may have got up to +2 but all over the mountain it remained about zero. The effect on the skiing was that everything that had softened yesterday came back today as rock hard boiler plate or icy bumps depending on how the surface had been left yesterday. There was always the wind sift to grab your tips and make the tricky skiing even more challenging.

It was very busy for a Sunday due to the coincidence of Alberta family week and Presidents weekend down south. We decided to stay on the New Side to avoid the huge lines usually around on the Old Side, particularly at Haul Back where the rule that you always have to ride in pairs appears to have lapsed with the resulting effect on the waiting times.

Everywhere on White Pass was a hard base with dust on top and we looped it for some time. We eventually tried an Alpha Centari run to  base which was dust on flatish crust and ok skiing. The gully off to the left of Gilmar Trail was a bit slick in the top but sift low down. We looped more through Tom's Run dust on crust, Easter Bowl ditto and few Currie chutes. Last run before lunch was Decline which totally sucked being rock hard refrozen bumps all the way down. I quite enjoyed it but I can't imagine anyone else would.

In the afternoon I was back to the New Side and did -

Currie Chutes - still dust on some very firm under base.

Lone Fire - the best snow on the hill with deep sift in the chute and some ok snow on an ice base all the way down to Freeway

Stag Leap - very tough through the trees but it sucked a lot less than Decline in the main part of the run but was still dust on an icy base.

After a couple of laps of White Pass we hit Skydive for the final run. Skydive sucked a lot less than Decline and Stag Leap and was almost good skiing in places. The final pitch was predictably hard and icy.

So overall a very hard day on an icy base which didn't soften lower down like yesterday. As I said, I enjoy that sort of stuff but I think that puts me in a pretty small minority.We either need more snow or some warmer weather to soften the base, Given the lack of winter conditions in the forecast I suspect it will be warmer weather rather than any good new snow that might get us out of the rather poor conditions that we currently have.