Day 51 I was right all along

For the past couple of days I have been saying that I have been ignoring the Old Side on the grounds that the skiing over there sucked although because I wasn't skiing it then this was an assumption on my part. Well, today we went over to try it and I am pleased (well not that pleased) to say I was right, it sucked, but more of that later.

There was no new snow and on the way to the hill it was -10 and sunny but with a slight high misty cloud. The cloud cover continued all day and increased so that as we drove away in temps of -5 we were actually getting some light snow which is continuing this evening but without much evidence of accumulation. The cloud remained high enough for us to have good viz for the most part but with some patches of flat light away from the direct sunlight. During the day temps rose a little but at every point on the hill it was several degrees sub zero so everything stayed bullet hard and frozen.

As I said in the interests of journalistic accuracy we went to the Old Side to see what conditions were like. The first few turns in Cedar Ridge were actually ok but then it became breakable crust all the way down. Kangaroo was ugly even by Kangaroo's own standards with hard icy bumps in the top, about a 1 metre drop on to the cat track due to some random grooming and the lower section refrozen tracked crud which was mixture of a rock hard ploughed field and rail road tracks. Boomerang was only a bit better and this was enough to convince me that my conclusions had been correct and it was time to head to the New Side.

Polar Peak was open and this time we had both sides, the Chutes and the Coaster side. This opened up Shale Slope and the Clown Chutes to add to yesterday options not to mention the mixture of cutting from Shale towards Grand Papa, skiing the shoulder and then dropping into the Grand Papa Chute - run of the day for me. With so many options I had no trouble in amusing myself all the way through to a late lunch just looping the Peak. Unfortunately a lot of people had the same idea and it wasn't long before the poor old generator on the chair started to overheat and we had to go to only loading every other chair - not a problem if you were riding single as I was but a pain otherwise. Final run before a late lunch was to hit the near untracked chute between Papa Bear and Mama Bear and then traverse across almost into the top of Spirit Bear which was the first time I had hit that line this season and it was great. The run to base was through Concussion which was still skiing very nicely in the chutes.

After lunch I intended to continue on Polar Peak but found the chair broken down for the rest of the day with people on the chair - as I didn't hear about an evac I assume they at least managed to run those stuck through to the top. I spent the afternoon looping the Currie Chutes from Concussion to Barracuda all of which skied well taking and edge even if they were a bit crusty low down. Gilmar Trail had turned to sheet ice where no matter how you pointed your skies you just slid down the fall line and this seemed to disconcert quite a few people.

Last run was Skydive where I had no great expectations and fully expected it to be just as bad as yesterday and perhaps because of this only two of us turned up to ski it. Actually it was good in the top and the mid section of crust seemed easier than of late although this may just be us getting used to the conditions. The final pitch was hard refrozen crud so overall the run was marginally better today but that may just have been our perception.

It was Kokanee Snow Dreams Party this weekend which in my opinion is an event well worth missing unless you enjoy crowds of strangers, a long line up to get in the bar and music too loud to allow conversation. We went to the Kodiak Lounge (cheapest beer in Fernie) for a quiet drink and then on to the pub to eat - a much better option in my opinion. The good news is that it is still snowing, not hard but anything is better than nothing and we must keep our fingers crossed for an accumulation by morning.