Day 129 A short day but a sticky one

It was a late start for skiing today as we had the Jeep booked in for a service - originally the hill was scheduled to close today so that was why we had the vehicle booked in. Now of course we have the Old Side open until next Sunday so real life had to encroach on skiing for a change. What with one thing and another it was 11 o'clock before I got the Jeep back and we got to the hill.

There was only a dusting of snow overnight and by the time we got to the hill it was +5 and warming up fast. During what was left of the morning we had some extended sunny periods but in the afternoon it clouded over and even threatened to rain with a few spots. As we drove away tonight it was +8 and doesn't show any immediate signs of cooling down.

The effect on the skiing surfaces was pretty predictable, the groomers were soft and very sticky when you got low down and away from the groomers it was super deep slow slush. The skiing in the slush was tough on the legs as you had to try and balance while being pulled from side to side as well as suffering severe forward/backwards lurches as the skiing surface changed.

The available skiing was very limited. Lizard High Traverse was closed and you could only get across the bowl at Tower 6. Cedar High Traverse was closed as was the whole of the Upper Cedar Bowl with Alpine Way also closed. The highest you could get into Cedar Bowl was by dropping Cedar Ridge off the top of the Boom chair, which isn't very high at all. This meant we were more or less restricted the Old Side Triangle all day.

We tried a quick Bear lap to test conditions and found things to be as described above. We spent the morning looping Bear, Cedar Ridge, Boom Ridge and Boomerang. We also returned through Kangaroo every time which actually skied not too bad in the upper section and could be almost straight lined in the second pitch as it was so heavy.

After lunch we had no choice but to rerun the morning several times over and if anything found it was getting softer off the groomers and stickier on them. Mid afternoon I went out on the Tower 6 Trail to see if a side step up into the Big 3 might be a possibility for the final run of the day but found that the sign line on Easter Bowl was down all the way down. The ungroomed and mostly untracked snow along side the fence was very heavy but quite good fun.

That was it for the day, 4 o'clock arrived as we got to the top of the Boom Chair so we finished with a last run down a very mushy Boomerang. The Griz bar tonight was a strictly locals affair as was the hill for the most part during the day.

In truth it wasn't a very good day's skiing but at this time of year the wonder is not how good the skiing is but the fact that we are skiing at all. Tomorrow looks like a bit of a repeat but with rain so nothing to get too excited about there.