Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Day 74 One thing after another

It seems to me that nature is really putting us to the test at the moment and I for one am getting pretty fed up with it. First we had ACL tearing heavy elephant snot in rain which then flash froze to bullet proof rock hard sheet ice - blue in places. We spent a few days sliding around on the sheet ice during which time they had to close down the whole upper mountain for safety reasons and then we had brutal arctic temps of way down in the -20s. To complete the set today we had howling winds sweeping what little snow we had off the slopes and dropped the wind chill temp even further, and all this in pretty poor flat light. Enough.

It was -15 on the way to the hill today and temps rose steadily during the day so that the drive home was at -2 although as has already been said it felt colder in the wind. No new snow overnight and skies were quite clear. As the morning wore on the ridge lines clouded over and the wind came up blowing snow devils around all over the place and even getting to us on the Boom Chair which is usually very sheltered. The skies cleared a bit in the afternoon and the wind dropped a little but to use a much over used expression it was another brutal day.

We went to the Old Side and found that pretty well everything off the groomers was closed and taking a few turns on the little that was open convinced us it was just dust on crust with sheet ice underneath. We looped Bear and Arrow which were groomed with some sift and even dropped China Wall which was unusually groomed. Bear Cave Chutes were open and provided about 6 ok turns before you got to Alpine Way. Cruiser and Cedar Centre were both groomed and skiing ok with a bit of sift holding up. The drop down North Ridge and Emily's to Haul Back was also ok with a bit of sift.

That really accounted for our morning with interlinking loops by various means into Cedar which we returned via Haul Back, Boom Chair and Bear. Feeling that I had let Kangaroo get the better of me yesterday I went back with much more aggression today and skied it 6 times in the morning as part of our loops. It was ugly icy bumps but in fairness skiing no worse than it usually does and by the end of the morning I was really enjoying myself.

After lunch at the ever excellent Big Bang Bagels (the Mr Fernie with bacon just has to be tried to be believed) we went to try the New Side. Everything seemed a lot harder and more wind scoured than yesterday particularly Puff Trees. The Gun Bowl had some soft snow but that was about it and for a change we didn't think that Knot Chutes would be worth the effort. We decided to head back to the Old Side which we did via 1-2-3s (ok once you got through the cat debris in 1s) Lower Barracuda (very slick) and the First Aid Trail which was very icy with warning signs.

The rest of the afternoon was spent doing the same kind of loops as the morning where we found that Cruiser and Cedar Centre were benefitting very well from the sift on the now slightly reduced wind. We had 3 more loops through Kangaroo bringing my daily total to 9 which may be something of a record and certain is the most I have skied it in these ugly conditions.

In the bar the talk was of the change in the weather which is forecast to give us snow tonight and most of tomorrow. With the temps having risen to -2 there is real optimism that the snow will come down heavy enough to stick to the ice base and give us a bit of a cushion to ski on. We have to live in hopes.

1 comment:

  1. “ Feeling that I had let Kangaroo get the better of me yesterday I went back with much more aggression today and skied it 6 times in the morning as part of our loops. It was ugly icy bumps but in fairness skiing no worse than it usually does and by the end of the morning I was really enjoying myself.”

    Yup, that’s the way to enjoy an icy bump day at Fernie. In fact, it was only upon reading your blog a few years ago that I learned to behold the joy that is Kangaroo on an icy bump day. Stay safe and keep the blog going!

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