The conditions today were decent, but hardly inspiring. There were a few centimeters of soft new snow up top and this was certainly much better than nothing, but it was not enough to mask the scrappier and lumpier bits underneath. It was close though and skiing it was not tough, but not really smooth either. North facing slopes such as Cedar Ridge seemed to be in better shape than South facing ones like Sunny Side. Before I get messages about how jaded I am, I should point out that a woman I met on Cedar Ridge pronounced it gorgeous. This certainly seemed extreme to me, but there was lots of room for interpretation. Overall I would give the day, and the season thus far for that matter, a B-. Not bad, but Griz could definitely get at his homework.
Everything
was open, but it was surprisingly busy for a Thursday morning and rather than
wait for the Face Lift I took the traverse from the top of Bear over to Snake.
The trail was pretty quick and undoubtedly faster than the Meat Hook loop.
Along the way I took this shot down Snake Ridge.
Somewhere
along the trail I apparently slipped into a state of mental confusion, for I
decided for some unknown reason that today would be a nice day for Steep and
Deep. Even here on the the extreme skier's right there were lots of alders,
but it was passable and probably would be very nice for the first couple of
folks down after a decent dump. However today, with a thin skiff of snow
over frozen ruts, bumps and death cookies, it certainly did not get my seal
of approval.
Part
of the reason for the hill being relatively busy was apparently school trips.
I ran Matt and Corey and their friends from Taber, who apparently are regular
readers of this report and have emailed me in the past. I couldn't resist
promising to include a picture of them in the report, so here they are at the
top of the Haul Back with North Ridge in the background.
At a little after 2:00 PM it is 2C at the house under a mainly cloudy sky with a bit a wind starting. It was snowing lightly earlier, but has stopped for now.
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