Craig's Report - March 4, 1998


Thank You Griz!

That was what was written on the sign at the bottom of the Bear T-Bar and I think it pretty much summed up what we were all feeling this morning.  It wasn't a big dump by traditional Fernie standards, but after a month and a half of drips and drabs, it was great to have some real powder underfoot. The snow was consistently boot high to knee deep and light enough to earn the powder tag and supply the occasional face shot.

Needless to say there were lots of smiling faces around.  So many in fact that there were times when there were significant lineups even on the Boom chair, which is rather unusual for a Wednesday.  This also meant the slopes the slopes got tracked pretty quickly, but even then the skiing remained great.  This fellow on Boomerang didn't seem to mind skiing in other folks tracks.

Farther down the mountain you could still feel the hard stuff underneath in places and some areas even became somewhat scraped off.  This is pretty picky though as most things were quite soft and smooth.

mar04982.JPG (19365 bytes)Over on Snake Ridge the powder seemed significantly deeper, the tracks fewer and face shots more frequent.  The Face Lift was closed, but the upper Cedar Traverse was open and the traverse from the T-Bar, where this shot was taken, was pretty quick and easy.

mar04983.JPG (17207 bytes)For a while the clouds even parted to provide that wonderful powder and sun experience.  Add in a run like Steep and Deep, which as this picture suggests was living up to its name, and you can't ask for much more.

At 2:15 PM the temperature at the house is 1C with the sun still poking through a high haze in places, but lots of cloud milling about too.

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