After a few days when things have been getting better we inevitably had to come to a day when things got a bit worse and a bit tougher and today was that day. I have to say that I am not quite sure why things got as they did as we had no new snow overnight and it didn't get that cold with starting temps of around -7 at the base and a bit colder on top. What ever the reason the snow was just harder and bumpier than yesterday with most of the soft stuff which made skiing pretty easy yesterday was somehow packed in hard to the existing base.
We went to the New Side with a view to skiing some soft stuff from yesterday but found that it just wasn't there. Buddies reported that the Old Side was no better so we thought "what the hell" and just stayed there all day. During the day it was overcast at times, at other times we had socked in cloud and in the afternoon blue skies which gave flat light in the shadows - in other words it was very variable. Temps up the hill never got very warm and I noticed it was -8 at the Polar peak load most of the day and towards the end it was -11 with some significant wind chill on the chair, in fact wind was becoming a bit of a feature by late afternoon.
We looped White Pass and found Gun bowl almost zero viz and Highline hard and bumpy - wait for later in this report for frequent use of these words. We hoped Alpha Centauri might be soft like yesterday but it wasn't - hard and bumpy.
After that it was three Polar loops to base -
Polar/Decline - Polar was totally socked in with no viz of any kind and the only saving grace was the final pitch down Grand Pappa was hard wind sift and very flat. Decline was very nice softening crust most of the way down but with some hard crust in the final few turns.
Polar/Stag Leap - Polar as before and Stag Leap much more crusty through the trees and in the top section. The bottom was very twiggy and hard and bumpy where it wasn't crusty.
Polar/Skydive - Polar the same and Skydive about half way between Decline and Stag Leap. Ok skiing but a but crusty and of course hard and bumpy.
In the afternoon after an awesome bagel lunch at Big Bang Bagels it was more of the same -
Polar/Not So Secret Chutes - Polar as before and having tried it 4 times in one day without great results I decided to can it for the rest of the day. NSSC were great skiing all the way down getting crustier as you went. I had thought of cutting into Spinal Tap but at the entrance level it was getting very crusty and not wanting to ski a very crusty tight chute I bailed into lower Easter bowl which skied ok in the high traffic areas.
Decline - Really very good skiing, very nice if a bit crunchy lower down.
At this point I have to mention that my buddy Brad had shown me a nice drop off in Big Bang as an alternative to lower Lift Line and I skied it all afternoon taking a bigger drop each time - great fun. It was 4 o'clock, time for Skydive, and tonight 6 of us turned up. Just like earlier in the day it skied very mellowing the top and middle sections but as before was very crunchy in the last pitch. Still a nice tough finish to the day.
Lots of beers and a welcome back to Rob, Katie and little Joseph who Lynda picked up from Cranbrook airport tonight having spent about 2 month with the in laws in Oz. Looking forward to getting Rob back on the hill and in the bar. Finished the evening doing a film shoot as part of a Kokanee advert on the locals deck where I had to give my views to cam on the Griz - can't wait to see how it all turns out.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Day 38 and still a little better
As suggested things were just a bit better today than yesterday. Whether or not this is due to an improvement in conditions or the fact that we are getting better at skiing rain crust remains and open question but you can't argue with the fact that skiing today (for us at least) was a bit better.
On the way to the hill it was -8 and -6 driving back. During the day up the hill I saw temps of maybe -3 which seemed a bit colder on the face for some reason, so things were warmer although they never got to plus temps. Best of all there was no real wind (even up Polar Peak) so it remained reasonably warm all day. We had no new snow overnight although the boards were claiming 5 cms in 24 hours where I guess most of it fell during the day yesterday. It was overcast and viz came and went all day. The base was 142 cms and Lynda's journal (probably the most authoritative document on the subject) confirms that the base at this time of the year is usually between 50 and 100 cms above where we are.
Crowds were pretty light as is usually the case on the first weekend after the Christmas holiday although there were quite a lot of kids groups around. We went to the Old Side to see what was what.
The morning was spent looping through New Lift Line (nice soft bumps) Gulch (closed so a bit technical) Lower Kangaroo (unskied unbroken rain crust - even more fun) Cedar Ridge (actually pretty good tracked skiing) King Fir ( a bit crusty with a blue ice patch in the middle) Boom Ridge (very technical crusty bumps with apologies to the group that came down after me obviously think it looked rather better than it was) and of course Boomerang which was a bit hard and bumpy but ok skiing as long as you paid attention. Some of these were skied several times.
Very late morning we went over to the New Side and even the drop via Lift Line from Timber top the White Pass load had improved in the warming conditions. We looped Polar Peak (very poor light but ok wind sift under the Grand Pappa Bear chute) and then ran to base via Alpha Centauri which like yesterday was the best skied in soft snow on the hill. Last loop before a very late lunch was Polar Peak again where the light was now much better and then Decline which was starting to ski soft with a bit of crust.
After lunch I just kept banging in 30 minute laps of the big three (Skydive, Stag Leap and Decline) which were great soft skiing but with some rather crusty bits particularly in Stag Leap. My view is that things were getting a little more easy all over with the crust softening but still a lot of challenging skiing where the crust was unbroken. Last run of course was Skydive which skied almost like usual in the tracked up crust that we have beaten in over the past few days.
So another good day at the hill with the ungroomed starting to repair and the off piste skiing good if you have the skill and are prepared to make the effort. Finally anyone easily offended please do not follow this link. I can only think that this has been put together by a blog follower who knows me well and I have my suspicions who it was - Shannon. Worth pausing some of the scenes to make sure you can read the sub titles which reflect my view on so many things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQFaAgFXVAM
On the way to the hill it was -8 and -6 driving back. During the day up the hill I saw temps of maybe -3 which seemed a bit colder on the face for some reason, so things were warmer although they never got to plus temps. Best of all there was no real wind (even up Polar Peak) so it remained reasonably warm all day. We had no new snow overnight although the boards were claiming 5 cms in 24 hours where I guess most of it fell during the day yesterday. It was overcast and viz came and went all day. The base was 142 cms and Lynda's journal (probably the most authoritative document on the subject) confirms that the base at this time of the year is usually between 50 and 100 cms above where we are.
Crowds were pretty light as is usually the case on the first weekend after the Christmas holiday although there were quite a lot of kids groups around. We went to the Old Side to see what was what.
The morning was spent looping through New Lift Line (nice soft bumps) Gulch (closed so a bit technical) Lower Kangaroo (unskied unbroken rain crust - even more fun) Cedar Ridge (actually pretty good tracked skiing) King Fir ( a bit crusty with a blue ice patch in the middle) Boom Ridge (very technical crusty bumps with apologies to the group that came down after me obviously think it looked rather better than it was) and of course Boomerang which was a bit hard and bumpy but ok skiing as long as you paid attention. Some of these were skied several times.
Very late morning we went over to the New Side and even the drop via Lift Line from Timber top the White Pass load had improved in the warming conditions. We looped Polar Peak (very poor light but ok wind sift under the Grand Pappa Bear chute) and then ran to base via Alpha Centauri which like yesterday was the best skied in soft snow on the hill. Last loop before a very late lunch was Polar Peak again where the light was now much better and then Decline which was starting to ski soft with a bit of crust.
After lunch I just kept banging in 30 minute laps of the big three (Skydive, Stag Leap and Decline) which were great soft skiing but with some rather crusty bits particularly in Stag Leap. My view is that things were getting a little more easy all over with the crust softening but still a lot of challenging skiing where the crust was unbroken. Last run of course was Skydive which skied almost like usual in the tracked up crust that we have beaten in over the past few days.
So another good day at the hill with the ungroomed starting to repair and the off piste skiing good if you have the skill and are prepared to make the effort. Finally anyone easily offended please do not follow this link. I can only think that this has been put together by a blog follower who knows me well and I have my suspicions who it was - Shannon. Worth pausing some of the scenes to make sure you can read the sub titles which reflect my view on so many things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQFaAgFXVAM
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