Day 96 a wet disjointed day

First apologies for late post, we were out with friends and have only just got back. The day was wet because we had a continual rain/snow mix all day and disjointed because, well, let the day's events speak for themselves.

It remained warm all night and on the way to the hill it was +3 which I guess would have been the average over night temp. They were claiming 3 cms of new snow and there certainly seemed to be a dusting of about this amount as we rode the first chair.

For reasons that are hard to explain we went to the Old Side to see what it was like. There was a minor accumulation of new snow up high but for the most part it was soft mush which was doing it's best to reform. We had a couple of loops of New Lift Line Cedar Ridge and Boomerang all of which skied ok with soft snow. Kangaroo was actually skiing very nicely with mushy bumps which were easy to ski. About then it started to rain on the lower hill with some wet snow higher up. This prompted two decisions, firstly to go high on the New Side and secondly to go in and put on my full plastic/rubber rain gear. This was the first disruption to the day.

On the New Side we found it was snowing hard above the White Pass load which gave great soft jersey cream snow. The snow was accumulation very quickly although it was rather wet and heavy and with hardly anyone on the hill we were getting fresh tracks pretty well every where we went. We took a decision to stay in White Pass rather than run to base where the precip was solid and hard rain. Our loops tended to be Knot Chutes (super soft and deep) followed by Surprise Trees or associated chutes which were similarly great skiing. After dropping the Tight Knot I waited to get out on the Idiot Traverse and as I jumped my turn to start my ski flew off while it was in the air and ran down the bowl. After a long slide to recover it I discovered my toe binding was broken and skied to base down the cat tracks in very gentle style to check the situation. Disruption number two.

An examination of the skies showed that both toe bindings had parts of the jaws broken away so I changed back to my DPS Hybrids and headed back up. I continued to loop Knot Chutes and the Surprise area until it was time for a very late lunch. It was still snowing hard on top and raining at the base. Soon it was time for a very late lunch and I ran to base through Corner Pocket which was about as soft and mellow as I have ever seen it with no tires showing. The light wasn't great but the skiing below the chute was just awesome untracked powder which was getting just a bit heavy as I bailed on to Dancer. Lunch was disruption number three.

After lunch there was very little time left so it was back to the New Side once again. It seemed to me that the rain line was getting a bit higher up the hill which was strange as the temps at White Pass loan remained at about zero as it had done all day. The snow up in White Pass also seemed a bit wetter to me although that may have been my imagination. More awesome Knot Chute/Surprise loops getting untracked lines as the heavy snow filled in areas which I know I had tracked up several times before.

Final run of course was Skydive which took a huge act of will power too get to as we skied past the Currie Chutes all of which looked awesome and untouched. Skydive was well filled in and soft and was fantastic for the first pitch, ok for the second, tolerable for the first half of the final pitch and pure elephant snot for the final few turns. It was a good work out to end a very good, if wet, day's skiing.

Driving home it was +3 and has remained that way all evening. I had to drop in to Straight Line to sort out my bindings and as I expected they replaced them on the spot with no problems - awesome customer service guys. Looks like we might be getting more of the same weather tomorrow so keep the rubber fishing pants handy and stay high.