Day 38 On the edge of a change

Woke up this morning - this is getting more and more like a Leadbelly (younger readers please Google) song every day. And when I woke up this morning I found it had just started snowing and temps were -15 on the way to the hill. During the day we had very light flurries off and on and although it didn't feel like it should be accumulating it did give us a covering on top of the old snow which did improve things. In truth the new snow speeded up the ski/snow reaction so that the tendency was to always push you into the back seat but if you were aware of this and got well over the skis the effect was to give you some very responsive turns all day.

Temps kind of warmed all day so that all over the hill we saw -15 rising to -11 during the day and even as we drove away from the hill it was only -14. Conditions were over cast giving some socked in conditions on top but from time to time we had breaks and in the afternoon we even had sun on the top of Polar Peak but cloud in the valley.

The base was down to 174cms which as a matter of interest is few cms below the level at this time last year despite the apparent good start to the season that we have had. It has to be said that everywhere now is in pretty bad need of new snow with rocks and twigs coming through in many places.

We went to the New Side and spent the day just looping the New Side by going up Polar Peak a couple of times each lap and then dropping through one of the many options available. We hit Polar 8 or 9 times and had runs which ranged from great viz in deep snow to complete white stick jobs in no viz at all. Papa Bear was very good and even Mama Bear had some nice soft lines.

The runs down were fun in the new snow covering which despite being light had a good effect on softening the surface. Touque Chutes/Secret Chutes (soft and deep) Decline (soft and much better than yesterday) Nameless trees (super deep but with dead fall and a cut out into Skydive the only way down) Lone Fir (ok in the chute and awesome in the fan) Stag Leap (ok in the trees, soft in the top but twiggy in the exit) Easter Meadow (soft but steep and tight as usual and good in the fan) The Brain (just the top section which was good) Window Chutes (surprisingly good even in the chokes) and maybe more besides.

My memory of  the runs may be affected by this being a drinking night for me - my first in 12 days. It was worth it as the snow was really very good and taking an edge despite there being very little new stuff. Overall it was  a very good day.

My concern tonight is that we are supposed to be getting some new snow but skis just don't look like it. I can only hope that things change over night and the 15 cms of more promised materialises before the morning.