Friday, December 16, 2016

Day 15 Plan B

Yes, I know I said that I would stop posting every day but I have had so many requests to rethink that I am prepared to try Plan B. That is to post more frequently but post less. It seems that what people are interested in are conditions and I reckon I could get those across in very few words on a daily basis. The stuff about what I have skied which is only of limited interest even to my friends can be dumped with no great loss - lets see how it goes.

Today we had no new snow so the  base was down to about 112 cms. This would normally be pretty good at this time of year but the snow that has come down has been at very cold temps with almost no moisture content so it  has no real body to cover and beat down the early season hazards, particularly alders. The result is good coverage but a base that was good to ski when new but is now fading fast.

It was seriously cold, so cold  in fact that the Timber Chair didn't start running until gone 10. Most of the day it hung at around -23 in mid mountain locations and any slight wind pushed the chill factor way down into the -30s. It was a day for many layers and full skin coverage to avoid frost bite.

With the last new snow 6 days ago the hill is starting to take on a rather beat up look and skiing is very tough. The only good news is that the snow had no moisture content as if it had the cold weather since then would have made the tracked up powder even more hard than it is. Ignoring the groomers (which I do) which seem to be in great condition nothing on the hill is easy to ski. The surfaces are chopped up and uneven so try to throw you off balance all the time. There are many early season hazards which would be difficult enough to avoid if the skiing was easy but in what we have it makes for a very difficult time and almost impossible to link a nice run together without having to constantly check and rebalance to avoid the undergrowth.

I skied both sides and the only real difference was that the New Side was a bit colder than the Old Side. Run of the day on the Old Side was Boom Ridge and on the New Side Anaconda but neither were easy or relaxing.

No new snow tomorrow and temps forecast to drop even further so I guess the good news is no weekend crowds and the bad news is the tough skiing continues. Enjoy.

2 comments:

  1. Daily conditions report would be great, plus your run of the day - perfect. Thanks!

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  2. Yeah I agree with Ted, great style of the report!

    ReplyDelete