Day 89 and in my opinion the worst day of the season so far but I am sure there will be others who disagree. With the forecast calling for wet snow turning to rain it was no surprise that we headed to the hill in a mix of sun and cloud and no sign of precip until half way through the afternoon.
Just like yesterday the temps soon hit +12 at the base and even managed +3 at Whitepass, the highest point of the hill. With these sort of temps we headed high to the new side as quick as possible to ski what we could before it went to mush. The Gun bowl and Surprise trees was just about ok and a trip down 123's was ok at the top but sloppy at the bottom. After playing around up top for a while the next attempt to get to the bottom was via Concussion which was again ok at the top but pretty quickly turned to mush and after that the whole thing became a bit of a waste of time. The final run down Decline was so heavy at the bottom that I could hardy lift the skis to turn.
To be fair if you are an intermediated skier just looking for fun on the groomers (on piste in UK speak) then today was fine with groomers staying firm under a soft surface which made skiing quite easy. Even if you want to go off the groomers as long as you stuck to high traffic areas then the hard packed base still made the soft surface quite good fun. However if you were looking to ski the low traffic, steep and in other circumstances deep areas then the mush was all but unskiable, or at least very hard work. The only guys having fun were those on the fat pontoons with maximum rocker who could handle the mush - my own bases are 95mm and I blew a ski off twice when it broke through and dived.
Just to test things I tried the old side to see how it was and the answer was very very soft although it didn`t seem quite as warm as the new side. By 1 o`clock I had enough and judging by the large number of empty chairs I could see going up the hill as I walked to the parking lot so had a lot of other people.
Went down town and took advantage of some of the fantastic end of season bargains to buy a new ski jacket and ski pants as the old ones have done about 500 days and are more duck tape than material in places.
Forecast is calling for a cool down and snow. If we get the one without the other then we are in for some pretty awful skiing before it gets better - fingers crossed. Temp on the deck is +10 and looks like it is about to rain.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
20th March
Day 88 and the first day of spring. Quick apology for the rather brief remarks on yesterday's blog, I spent some time crafting a very erudite post only to lose it into hyperspace before I could post it so what you got was a brief recall of what I could remember.
As befits the first day of spring the forecast was for temps of +5 on the hill with a chance of rain showers. In the event the high at the base got to +12 with +6 even at quite high elevations. Seeing how things were developing we hit the new side early with a view to skiing some of the high altitude snow before the warmth did too much damage. Managed to get Anaconda/Bootleg, Mitchys, Surprise trees/Diamond Back and a rather nice run through the trees from the split in Skydive and Decline all in before it got too mushy. Last run before lunch was down Stag Leap which was just about ok at the top but at the bottom where it had been soft snow it turned to elephant snot and it was touch and go to keep the skis moving even on the steeper pitches.
After a much needed rest at lunch I hit the old side to see if it was any better - it wasn't, it was worse. With the whole hill becoming a rather unstable mush of melted snow the best places to ski were what had previously been high traffic areas, anything that had old fresh snow on was just hard work. Nice skiing in Boomerang, Kangaroo and Buckshot was the order of the day.
About 3 it started to rain so it was time to head high again into White Pass to get above the rain line. You could just about do that half way up the White Pass chair but the snow was very wet and the viz at the top was so bad you could hardly see your skis. I took this as sign that the day was over and had a last run down Skydive which was so heavy I had to stop 3 times on the way down to get my breath,
A few beers in the Griz soon restored me although if tomorrows forecast of warm and rain comes true it will be a half day at best just to check out that there is nothing up there worth missing. As I sit here typing it is light rain with a temp of +5 on the deck so for the next few days at least it looks like a pretty bloody time on the hill.
As befits the first day of spring the forecast was for temps of +5 on the hill with a chance of rain showers. In the event the high at the base got to +12 with +6 even at quite high elevations. Seeing how things were developing we hit the new side early with a view to skiing some of the high altitude snow before the warmth did too much damage. Managed to get Anaconda/Bootleg, Mitchys, Surprise trees/Diamond Back and a rather nice run through the trees from the split in Skydive and Decline all in before it got too mushy. Last run before lunch was down Stag Leap which was just about ok at the top but at the bottom where it had been soft snow it turned to elephant snot and it was touch and go to keep the skis moving even on the steeper pitches.
After a much needed rest at lunch I hit the old side to see if it was any better - it wasn't, it was worse. With the whole hill becoming a rather unstable mush of melted snow the best places to ski were what had previously been high traffic areas, anything that had old fresh snow on was just hard work. Nice skiing in Boomerang, Kangaroo and Buckshot was the order of the day.
About 3 it started to rain so it was time to head high again into White Pass to get above the rain line. You could just about do that half way up the White Pass chair but the snow was very wet and the viz at the top was so bad you could hardly see your skis. I took this as sign that the day was over and had a last run down Skydive which was so heavy I had to stop 3 times on the way down to get my breath,
A few beers in the Griz soon restored me although if tomorrows forecast of warm and rain comes true it will be a half day at best just to check out that there is nothing up there worth missing. As I sit here typing it is light rain with a temp of +5 on the deck so for the next few days at least it looks like a pretty bloody time on the hill.
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