Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Day 97 even wetter if that's possible

Once again apologies for the late report, another night out at friends, what it is to be popular. On the way to the hill it was +3 having rained all night in the valley. We hoped that this would mean snow up higher and they were in fact calling for 7 cms on the web site. At the White Pass load temps were down to zero but during the day they rose to about +2 and this evening in the valley we are back to +3.

It rained or snowed all day with everything around the White Pass top or above totally socked in with fog or cloud. The rain line drifted up and down the hill so that some time we had wet snow at the base and at other times we had rain all the way to the top. The result was heavy creamy wet snow to about half way down White Pass or the Currie Chutes and then super deep heavy elephant snot below that.

At first only White Pass was open on the New Side so we did some loops through Knot Chutes and Surprise Trees which were all smooth but wet and heavy. We decided to drop Anaconda which was very mellow in the top but had become mush in the bottom and slough management was a real issue.

When we got up White Pass again we were pleased to see that Currie Bowl had opened but amazed to find Polar Peak was also open considering the very poor viz. We stuck to Papa Bear chute in Polar because of the poor viz and is was super deep and soft all the way down. We did a series of New Side loops which incorporated Polar chutes followed by Concussion, then Tom's, then Barracuda all of which were soft and untracked in the top becoming very heavy and wet lower down. By lunch it was raining hard all over the hill and the mush line was moving up fast.

After lunch Timber Chair broke down (again) so we headed to the Old Side (most of which was now closed) and found that Cedar Ridge was very slow and pure elephant snot in the last few turns. Kangaroo skied nicely as soft bumps although it was a bit slow and the ski back to Boom Chair was a real piece of work. Hearing that Bear Chair had now broken down I dropped Boom Ridge which actually sked ok in the steep pitch but was super slow deep mush lower down. I heard that Timber had reopened so I went there to catch the last few runs of the day.

Unfortunately Currie Bowl was now closed so we had three loops back through the Knot Chutes and Surprise Trees which had all become very mushy and slow motion skiing. With our route to Skydive closed we thought the next best thing would be Gotta Go and so finished with that which was ok skiing in the chute and soft mush down to the trail.

After the hill closed it rained and has been raining ever since. All forecasts suggest that tomorrow will be even wetter with the rain line at the top of the hill. This could be a messy few days.

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