13th April Easter Monday

Day 112 and this was a genuine powder day - well lets not get carried away it wasn't awesome powder but if you count a powder day as one where you make a significant number of turns in untracked snow and quite few of those are turns where you don't scrape the bottom this sure enough was a powder day.
Last night it rained for long perods and the topic of debate in the bars was where, if at all, the rain turned to snow up the hill. The morning revealed a very high snow line on Mount Fernie so we headed to the new side to get the best posssible snow result by skiing the highest parts of the hill. First run down Lift Line was not good with wind crust at the top and rain crust from half way down and to be honest it didn't get much better in there all day.
Weather for the day flicked between snow flurries to sunny periods. In the sun the surfaces softened but then set up as each flurrie passed. The flurries didn't give enough snow to cover
the resetting so as the day went on the crust got worse so that by the end there was some very challenging surfaces but before that we had some great skiing.
From the outset Gun bowl was excellent with untracked powder although only about 5 cms deep - the official report gave 14 cms of new snow and all I can say is that I want a bottle of whatever they were drinking. We spent the whole morning in the Whitepass area working our way across Gun bowl to get fresh tracks each time then working our way back to the lift by a combination of I bowl, Fiery Hornet, under the lift, Highline Trees and other variations. With only a quick break in Lost Boys Cafe for a hot chocky and one of their awesome cookies it was 2 before we were thinking about lunch and that after I had hiked Knot chutes which had opened to the surprise of most of us.
I would had gone to lunch but ran into my buddy Rob and we skied a bit on White pass then found great snow mostly untracked in 123s. We came off the hill through Diamond back as we did all afternoon and found the snow variable with soft surfaces, sometimes with a quite hard crust, and some underlying ungroomed bumps. Next circuit we tried Anaconda and were amazed to find it untracked, deep and soft at just before 3 in the sfternoon - great to see that there was no one on the hill, or at least no one who knew where the good skiing was. Final run off the hill through 123s provided more excellent untracked snow at the very end of the day.
Never tried the old side but reports I got in the Griz bar suggested it wasn't any great shakes as the rain line was just about at the top of Lizard bowl.
More rain/snow called for so we could actually finish on a powder day, how good would that be ?

12th April - Easter Sunday

Ok one last pic from hotdog day which is me coming out of the Goat Trail at the foot of Boom bowl onto the Bear run - could be a shot straight from the 1980's except for the twin tip free riders which of course are a bit of a give away.

Day 111 ( Nelsons) and winter returns - well not exactly winter but a significant change in the weather. Last night it rained but with deck temps of +4 hill snow didn't really seem much of an option. We arrived to areport of 1 cm of fresh but more inportantly the conditions were overcast with occasional flurries so there was no direct sunlight to soften the snow and the melt line moved only very slowly up the hill as the day went on. Even by afternoon the melt line was only about three quarters of the way up the hill and as we left the hill the upper slopes were getting a fair amount of new snow although how long this will go on for is a matter of debate.

We started on the old side and found pretty well everything frozen so had to spend rather longer on the groomers than usual. Eventually the lower slopes softened and we found that Kangaroo was particularly nice having been beaten flat by the nights rain, frozen then softened on the surface, This gave near perfect spring skiing ( as opposed to summer skiing which is what we have had for the past few days) and we ripped it several times.

Encouraged I stuck my nose into Boom bowl and Boom ridge and found them both to be rock hard bumps with tufted ice on top which was very tough going. Second time through Boom ridge I decided to have another try and even though when I tested the surface it was ice again I went in and found it just as bad - just goes to show how dumb you can be, but still ok if challenging and living up to it's double black diamond grading.

We went to the new side and immediately found some fresh snow. In Lift Line this had the effect of providing a new surface over the ice and much improved the skiing. At the top of White pass there was about 3cms of fresh snow in Gun bowl which was really dust on crust with the underlying surface being rutted ice from the day before - not great. Deciding on an easy run off the hill before lunch we dropped down Down Right only to discover it hadn't been groomed and was pretty icy so we just had to suck it up and bounce our way down to the day lodge.

In the afternoon I tried the new side again and did the usual loops out on the County Line to try Decline and Skydive. Due to and error of judgement I managed to blow off both skis on an ice chunk in Cornice chutes and take a header down the chute as a result - heigh ho, no harm done except to my pride. On Currie creek shoulder there was a lot of damage with branches, roots and leaves all over the traverse, don't know what caused it ( hope it wasn't a bear waking up and having a scratch) but I went for my good citizenship award by stopping and cleaning up the trail.

Spent the rest of the afternoon cycling Skydive and Decline the latter being slightly better. As you might expect the runs were icy at the top great in the mid section and a bit heavy at the bottom - typical spring skiing.

Light rain and + 5 so could be snowing on top at this moment. Some reports call for 2-4 cms tonight so we may be getting a little more winter and fresh snow , if not real powder, before we finish off.