Thursday, December 29, 2016

Day 28 Normal service has been resumed

Yes, we woke up this morning and it was snowing although from the ground cover it hadn't been snowing long. The hill reported 4 cms overnight which held the base up at 182 cms. The good news is that it continued to snow all day and is still snowing now as I type this. I guess we may have had as much as 15 cms out of the cycle so far with another 15 due tonight - who knows tomorrow may be the day for the 2 metre party.

On the way to the hill temps were -4, as they were on the way back and during the day the up the mountain temps held at about -7 but there was a strong wind chill particularly on the New Side. The main feature of the day was the overcast conditions which gave very poor viz the higher you went but this was off set by the new powder which grew all day on the base of the old powder once again giving some spectacular skiing.

The crowds showed up again but like yesterday they seemed to be confined to the parking lot, the day lodge and the lower mountain. We skied all morning on the Old Side and didn't wait in line once. After a late lunch we skied the New Side and while this was a bit busier waits were never more than 1 or 2 minutes - Europe eat your heart out.

As promised yesterday we went to the Old Side but found the Cedar High Traverse closed for avi risk already. This meant that Snake Ridge could only be accessed by a hard side step traverse and with so much good skiing to be had with little or no effort it just didn't seem worth while. We made numerous loops of Cedar Ridge (several different routes) King Fir, Linda's, Bear Cave Chutes Boom Ridge, Boom and even a bit of Buck Shot. Everything was deep, soft, lightly tracked or totally untracked and generally awesome skiing. A special mention has to go to Kangaroo which we must have dropped 6 times on our loops back and it just got better each time - I don't ever think the Roo has skied so mellow.

In the afternoon we hit the New Side and sure enough (those of you who read last nights report will remember that the reason for skiing the Old Side was to take one for the team as they always open Polar Peak when I do that) Polar Peak was open for the first time in over a week. The light was totally socked in so we only did one drop down Papa Bear but the snow was sensational and if we can keep the peak open and get better viz tomorrow we should be in for a good day.

Other notable runs of the afternoon were Lone Fir (still good in the chute and awesome deep powder in the fan) Touque Chutes (getting really deep towards the end of the day) Spinal Tap (still super deep in the creek bed) all of which could have been run of the day on a normal day. That honour went to Skydive which we hit on the last rip and with a full days snowfall in it. We had a blast with face shots all the way through the top section.

If the snow holds up all night, and it certainly looks like that now, we could be in for an even better day tomorrow. I am told that they have 80 people signed up for first tracks tomorrow (don't get me on the subject of pay for powder groups) so it will be a New Side day with an eye to Polar Peak.


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