Day 65 - I'm thinking about it

And what I am thinking about is starting up the blog again.

Let me make it clear that nothing has changed since RCR emailed me on the 3rd December and said "Our Senior Risk Management Team will have to further investigate this matter to determine if further action is required" with further references to removing my pass. Given that 2 months have passed since the date of this email I assume that the great and good who comprise the "Senior Risk Management Team" have met and decided that I don't represent a risk to society and can therefore keep my pass. An email to this effect would have been a nice courtesy but then I suppose I shouldn't expect miracles.

If I do decide to continue the blog then everyone should be aware that there will be no more private emails or off the record chats. Any threats to me will be published here on the blog so everyone can see what is going on. Anyone thinking of threatening me would be well advised to make sure that they are happy for anything they say or write to be published and attributed.

One of the main factors in my consideration is the staggering support I have received from a huge number of followers regarding the blog, I had always hoped that I was providing a useful service but I am quite honestly amazed (and not to mentioned rather touched) by the level of support I have received from a wide range of people both on line and personally on the hill. Followers seem to fall into two camps - those who don't ski every day and want their daily fix of Fernie skiing and those who ski regularly who want source of accurate information about conditions which is sadly lacking from official sources. Both of these seem to be suffering as a result of my decision to stop the blog/

Another factor is purely a personal issue. The blog takes me about an hour an night, sometime less. I am now spending about 2 hours a night answering emails from people either about the blog, or conditions in Fernie or whether or not they should come and ski here with their friends. It would simply be much quicker for me to go back to writing the blog.

In my final post I referred everyone to official sources of information but I have to say that those are just not fit for purpose. Some examples are - a week ago we had a day when it snowed all day with a fall rate of 10 cms an hour at one time and the next day it showed a total of 6 cms in 24 hours - we regularly see the forecast daytime high as being lower than the day time low, I think they transpose the figures - the other morning the figures showed zero snowfall year to date and a zero snow base - only yesterday the base was shown as 295 cms and after no snow in the last 24 hours today (we actually did have some) it showed at 311 cms. It's a complete shambles which I can't make head nor tail of and I ski every day so what hope would anyone else have.

In the absence of my blog to give a reality check the publicity machine (bovine excrement department) appears to have gone into overdrive. We have reports of the huge snowfall in the year to date which fails to mention that a significant proportion of this was washed away in the late November rains. Similarly there is a load of ballyhoo about the 2 metres plus of powder we have received in January which fails to mention that for extended periods we couldn't access it due to lift break downs (I'm sorry, unscheduled maintenance) and avi closures. Don't get me wrong, you will never hear me criticise the patrol for closing the hill for safety reasons but I do have a problem with the fact that this is not mentioned in the "awesome powder" publicity circus. Don't even get me on the subject of the toilets, parking and day lodge facilities, none of which come near coping on high traffic days.

Finally a number of my conspiracy theorist friends (of whom I seem to have a disproportionate number) take the view that as RCR have always hated my blog as something that is beyond their control (a fact that has been stated to me on a number of occasions by senior management) that this is part of a larger plot to gag me and by stopping the blog I am playing into their hands. I can't say if this is right but it certainly is point of view.

So in summary all these factors are rolling around in my brain at the moment. In the next couple of days I will make my final decision as to whether or not to shut down this site forever or to try and go back to something like normal service. Any thoughts or inputs which may help me with my decision would be more than welcome.

PS Sorry about the small type, can't seem to do anything to make it larger but any future posts would be back to normal