Day 83 still snowing

The hill's report gave 8 cms overnight which when added to the afternoon flurries of yesterday gave us 13 cms in 24 hours. The temp on the way to the hill was -8 and driving home tonight it was -6. During the day I noticed highs of about -4 at the Timber load and -9 at the White Pass load so just like for the past few days the new snow stayed in great shape all day. It was overcast with light flurry activity when we arrived at the hill and stayed that way most of the day but with some significant sunny spells which allowed us to access Polar Peak in reasonable viz.

There was hardly anyone on the hill as the holiday crowds had gone home and the 20 cm crowd from town decided that there was not enough new snow to tempt them out. I simply went to my default setting on a powder day (the 13 cms of new snow on all the lightly tracked stuff we already had certainly made this a powder day) and went to the New Side to loop it all day without a lunch break. It's probably easiest to just to list the runs to give everyone and idea of conditions.

Decline - Lynda and Simon grabbed first tracks in Skydive while I was making yellow snow so I cut into Decline and had first tracks all the way down. The new snow on top of yesterday's soft deep powder made for great face shots for the whole run
Cougar Glades - a few tracks were to be seen in top but they quickly disappeared and it was deep untracked through the trees. The intention was to stop on the Megasauraus Trail but the snow was so deep we rolled straight through it without noticing and hit the left exit chutes which are now filled in and super deep.
Polar Peak - We did two loops of Papa and Grand Papa Bear which had deep sift before dropping Mama Bear via my tight little right chute. The snow below Mama Bear was very deep and awesome skiing.
Stag Leap - very easy through the trees and then huge untracked sections all the way down with only about three tracks in front of us. More face shots.
Touque Chutes/Spinal Tap - There seemed to be a bit more snow on the north facing slopes around the Easter Bowl area so Touque Chutes were particularly good and deep. Spinal Tap was tracked but the soft snow in the creek bed made for a mellow run.
The Brain - when we looked in there didn't seems to be many tracks and that was right. The top and middle sections were soft untracked lines and the final part was good tight technical tree skiing all the way down to the cat track.
Polar Peak - this time it was Grand Papa bear which seemed to be filling in quickly with wind sift and then Spirit Bear which was lightly tracked with deep snow low down.
Lone Fir - the chute was full of soft sift and the fan underneath was super deep soft snow. Great skiing with high speed GS turns. The exit through Easter and Freeway was also pretty good.
Tight Knot/Triple Trees - the Tight Knot chute was skiing about as mellow as I can remember with easy powder turns down to the Idiot Traverse. Triple Trees had many untracked and lightly tracked lines and the snow seemed particularly deep in the top and even the drops on to cat tracks we easy. It was so good we skied all five sections.
Polar Peak - a quick run down Grand Papa Bear where for a change I hit the left shoulder down to the Traverse and found very deep wind sifted snow where all the tracks had been erased.
Nameless Trees - there were great untracked lines to be had between the trees down to the creek bed. After a few turns in the creek I hit the right shoulder and kept pushing right in untracked tight trees until I worked my way out at the bottom of Stag Leap.
Gotta Go/Trees near Bootleg - actually I hopped over the shoulder to the left of Gotta Go into Google Earth. The first turn was a bit scratchy but after that it was the deepest snow of the day with continual face shots down to the trail. The trees to the right of Boot Leg and Left of Diamond Back are becoming a favourite and I must find out if they have a name. They were as always steep and with soft snow and a rather technical exit above the Gilmar Trail but great skiing.

Riding up Timber Chair I reckoned I had time for a quick loop of Siberia Ridge before heading out to Skydive. I linked up with my buddy Brad and we decided to hit Diseased Trees for the first time this year. Sad to report that like a couple of green vacation skiers we just rallied into an area we didn't know and continued down getting tighter and steeper until we found ourselves at the top of a cliff surrounded by chest high dead fall. It was a long side step back up to get to a point where we could at least slither over the dead fall into a more open but still very steep pitch and drop on to the cat track. We got back to Timber Chair with only a couple of minutes to last chair and obviously too late to get the White Pass and Skydive - sorry Rod. Of course we did the only thing possible which was to go back to Diseased Trees and try and do it better. We both had different theories of where would be best so Brad hit left and I hit right with an agreement to compare notes in the bar. In the event we both have pretty good if quite challenging lines but way better than out efforts the time before - let that be a lesson to everyone of the dangers of over confidence.

Just off for wings night at The Pub and it is puking snow once again. Possibly another 10 cms overnight which will make tomorrow another awesome powder day.