Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Day 75 Almost back to normal

The snow we were promised overnight materialised and we had 16 cms by morning. Best of all the temp was -2 on the way to the hill so the snow came down with a reasonable moisture content and gave a good covering to the sheet ice that was the surface on most of the hill. It continued to snow before stopping late morning and my guess would be that we got about 20 cms out of the cycle. The on mountain temps were very strange ranging from +1 in places to -7 in others as the arctic air mass moved around with the incoming Pacific system. On the way home from the hill it had settled to -5 and seems to be staying that way.

The effect on the hill was like magic. The covering of hero snow meant that skiing was very good and although you did drop through to the hard ice base in places as long as you kept your speed up you had a reasonable amount of float to keep you away from it. The crowds didn't show up as Lot 2 was pretty deserted as we parked at about a quarter to 9. We decided to hit the New Side in the hope that Concussion and the Big 3 would be opening sometime.

At first everything was as yesterday with Lift Line and Anaconda closed and even Currie Bowl closed although Knot Chutes were open. We had some awesome White Pass loops first through Gun Bowl then Knot Chutes all of which had soft deep untracked snow. We pushed out to Surprise Trees looking for Anaconda which remained closed but found Surprise good but a bit scratchy at the top and very much repaired from yesterday. We dropped Triple Trees that were mostly untracked and found that whilst they were scratchy in the top they just got better the further you went down so that the final pitch was soft deep untracked powder.

We did a few more Knot Chute/Surprise laps which were still soft and deep while waiting for Currie to open. When the fence dropped on Currie it was only open to the County Line so we raced with the other participants in the Currie 500 and had untracked lines down Currie Glades which was very mellow. The drop to base was through the helter skelter in bootleg and then the gully on the left of Gilmar - it was all untracked and totally awesome.

Next loop we tried 1-2-3s which was poor light in the top but by 2s we were finding untracked lines all the way down in ok light. the run to base was Bootleg and the Gully again which still were largely untracked. We got word that Anaconda had opened so we took the Tight Knot which was really soft and deep and the Anaconda 1 which had a scratchy couple of turns near the top but was then super soft and deep.Tthe run down once again was Bootleg and the Gully which were still good.

Somewhere in there Lift Line opened but not quite from the top. The snow was soft and deep and the traverse out into Big Bang was well worthwhile. I skipped lunch waiting for the Reverse Traverse to open but it never did. The Polar Sink did open so with a bit of work and side stepping we hit Decline which was awesome with just two tight tracks down the right leaving the left for us - I thought that was going to be run of the day. Next Loop was Cougar Glades where there was one track in front of me that disappeared and then it was untracked all the way down - on the left hand exit the slough got so great I had to pull over and let it go to stop being taken out. That qualified as run of the day by a big margin

We were a little short of time so we put in a Concussion loop and hit my favourite chute only to find it untracked, it was deep and awesome. The exit through the Gully was still good although much more tracked than it had been. Final run of course was Skydive which we hit in one all the way down. It was tracked but there were still untracked lines to be found if you stuck to the sides, so we did. So ended an officially awesome day, the first for over a week

The weather forecast had been for snow during the day stopping this evening so it should come as a surprise to no one that it stopped snowing during the day and started to snow hard as we left the hill. As I am typing this a full on winter storm is blowing outside and I anticipate another awesome powder day tomorrow. There is also a rumour that we will get Polar Peak tomorrow for the first time this season. The chair was turning today and things looked good but all this extra snow may put things on hold for a day or two. I'm a happy bunny with or without the Peak.


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