Sunday, April 16, 2017

Day 130 final day

And today was the final day of what has been a good (good but not great) season and it finished on something of a high. Overnight we may have had a cm or two of snow but nothing to get excited about. It was -4 first thing but a bluebird day so the temps rose very quickly particularly in the direct sunlight. During the day the temps rose and I am not sure of exactly how warm it got but on the way home it was +9 on the temp on the truck and in the afternoon I noticed it was about +5 at the White Pass load.

Today was closing day so we did expect to do any serious skiing and in any event my mind was occupied with trying to do better in the Slope Soaker where I stacked it on landing last year. We went up to the top of the Old Side and had a few loops around Bear and Lizard Bowl all of which were soft and easy in the softening sun. It was then time to register for the Soaker and then after that on the advice of an experience pond skimmer (thank you  Robin) I spent the rest of the morning in the Terrain Park getting used to hitting blind jumps and keeping my weight centred on the landings.

After the safety briefing at 12:30 we were ready for the main even at 1:00 and at number 10 in the starting line up I was ready to go. The best thing you can say is that I did better than last year and at least managed to stay on my feet for some time after I landed on the water which was big improvement. It took some time to get back to the locker rooms and get changed back into my proper ski gear and get ready for a full on afternoon's skiing. Here is me getting out of the water,

We had word during the morning from the New Side that things were skiing well in the sunlight and the Polar Peak and the Currie Head Wall were open and good - after lunch we went up to put this to the test.

Lift Line was closed under Timber Chair but you could cut in somewhere near the top and it was ok skiing with soft lightly tracked snow on a firm base. As Polar Peak was open we went up and found the conditions excellent soft skiing in all the chutes. Grand Papa Bear and Barely Legal were particularly good and in many ways better than at any time so far this season with easy soft skiing. The Currie head wall looked like it had received a good hammering since it had opened so we decided that the juice would not be worth the squeeze to hike up and ski it once again this season. To our surprise the Polar Chair was closed at about 3:10 so we could loop no longer and so we headed out to Decline which skied ok most of the way down but got a bit mushy in the final few turns.

It was getting late so we just had time for a White Pass (Gun Bowl, Pillow talk, Megan's Dilemma ) loop in what was slightly resetting up soft snow but still very easy skiing. Last run of course was Skydive where I found myself to be the sole representative of the Skydive Last Run club which I guess was only to be expected after a long and hard season. It was good skiing all the way down with soft snow on top of a firm base and I hit it in one all the way down to the base - a great last run of the season.

In the Plaza BC/DC (and AC/DC tribute band) were just finishing off as we got there so we went to the Griz Bar balcony and drank beer. As more buddies rolled up things just got better and guess what - we drank even more beer. It was great end of season party even by Fernie standards.

That's it for this year folks - a full season report will follow in a day or two.

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