Day 129 what a good way to end a season

Of course we haven't quite ended the season yet but as final day is more of a party then today was the last really full on day's skiing and it was very good indeed. First I must apologise for the late report but the party went on late tonight and then continued with a meal at the pub.

They were reporting about 4 cms of fresh snow overnight and on the way to the hill the temp as we pulled in to the parking lot was -1. It started to snow as we went up the Old Side and snowed fairly hard for most of the morning. Later in the day the snow came and went in showers of either full on winter snow or graupel and we had a quite reasonable accumulation by the end of the day. To begin with the top of the hill was socked in and viz was very poor indeed but by late morning this had lifted and we had ok viz for the rest of the day even if the light was a bit flat at times.

We had intended to hang around at the top of Bear to see the start of the skiing leg of the PPP but got distracted by the skiing in Cedar Center which was ok fresh snow on a firm base. We looped the Old Side all morning getting fresh lines in Cedar Ridge several times and always found the snow good powder on an uneven scratchy base. Our exits were through Kangaroo every time which was softening and great soft bump skiing. We put first tracks in Boomerang on our first exit and there weren't that many tracks in there on our third time round - again it was heavy powder on a scratchy base which was ok skiing. We even grabbed second tracks down Boom Ridge which was rather tougher than anticipated with some very uneven ice under the new snow. We went to lunch happy.

After lunch we hit the New Side and found Lift Line skiable but not great although this was way ahead of what we would have expected yesterday and lower down the new snow was smooth deep powder. Polar Peak was open so we went up but it wasn't that great and was rather patchy. We had the usual problem with Papa Bear that the snow got good just at the point you would need to cut back to the lift - we didn't bother and dropped to the traverse in ok wind blown snow.

The Big Three beckoned so we dropped Decline which had some untracked lines and was powder on top becoming soft snow on a softening base lower down. Next was Cougar Glades which had many untracked chutes and where the snow was just like Decline and really great skiing. We had time for a couple of White Pass loops and with the Idiot Traverse closed before Surprise Trees we had to cut into the trees lower down and found great untracked lines.

Last run of course was Skydive which skied just like Decline, good powder in the top and good soft snow lower down. It was tracked but you could still find untracked lines along the edges of the run.

We partied hard first in the plaza to Wide Mouth Mason and then in the Griz Bar although I remained on OJ and Soda and will do until tomorrow. It was a great way to end the season and tomorrow looks like it might actually be a sunny day to finish. My report tomorrow might be late, like 24 hours late, for obvious reasons.