Day 130 One more day to go

Yes, tomorrow will be my last day of the season so I have declared it an honorary Sunday and will have a couple of beers to celebrate the occasion so the blog might not be quite up to snuff. A lot of people have expressed surprise that I am not skiing right through to closing day on Sunday and are almost shocked that I won't have a 100% record. I think those people don't really understand why I ski every day, they think I am trying to prove something or get kudos for skiing every day, or set some kind of record. The truth is that I do it because I enjoy it and if I have to miss a few days because I am flying out on Saturday and need a couple of days to get sorted that is no big deal to me and shouldn't be for anyone else.

On the way back from the gym this morning it was -1 which was not good news. It meant that all of yesterdays chopped up mashed potato would have frozen solid and been all but unskiable until it softened. There was no new snow overnight and when we got to the hill it was as anticipated hard and icy even on the groomers. The only new terrain that was opened was the top of Cedar Bowl so that we had Cruiser groomed and lower Cedar Centre which was not.

It was overcast but with the very odd flash of sun and although it threatened precip we stayed dry until the very last runs of the day when we did have some light drizzle. Temps rose giving slow atmospheric warming so that the hard frozen surfaces did not become skiable until much later in the day than yesterday. As we drove away from the hill tonight it was +5 so eventually everything did get soft.

We spent a lot of the morning looping around the Old Side on groomers waiting for things to soften. Those loops included Bear, Arrow, North Ridge, Cruiser and Cedar Trail. The groomers started to soften but still with a hard base so we tried Kangaroo and found it hard and icy in many places but showing some signs of softening so we tried it again and it was a bit better. I did try Boomerang Ridge and found it was still too chunky to be enjoyable skiing so we went for an early lunch via Boomerang which was ok in the high skier traffic areas but pretty tough in the refrozen mashed potato.

Lynda left at lunchtime to go swimming and I anticipated a gentle afternoon trying some of the ungroomed skiing. Unfortunately I bumped into some buddies who were in the mood to rip and so we did mainly with loops in Cedar Bowl dropping Cruiser and then the ungroomed (and mostly untracked) Lower Cedar Centre which by this time had become very soft but with a light crust. We also hit Boom Ridge which was almost isothermic and Boom Bowl which has softened to about ok. Exits were always through Kangaroo which has softened on a hard base and ironically was probably the best skiing off the groomers to be had today.

Late in the day I checked to see that we couldn't side step up into the Big 3 (we couldn't as the Easter sign Line was down) and with that option closed took a final rip from Bear Top to Base and called it a day. It was quiet in the Griz tonight but what we lacked in quantity we made up for in quality.

We had the final wings night at the Pub and said goodbye to good friends for the summer. It was raining hard in town and the final day may not be quite the champagne ending to the season that we had hoped for. As a matter of interest to all those who are muttering about closing when we have a base of 380 cms in 2011 we closed with a base of 452 cms on 15th April with a temp of -2 and 4 cms of powder over night so we have been here before.