February 19, 2000

The Joy of Reduced Expectations

In our typical upbeat manner, we expected the worst today. Surely those legions of long weekend visitors would clog the lifts and beat the snow into frozen cement. With such expectations, it is surprising we made it out at all, but around one my wife and I headed listlessly up for a couple of runs before picking up our daughter from ski school.

To our surprise, the lift lines were modest and the skiing enjoyable, particularly when the sun brightened everything up. We did not cover a lot of ground, so this is far from a comprehensive report, but the snow was much like yesterday, which is to say variable. Up top it remained very nice and soft, but we found large sections of boiler plate near the bottom of Currie and a trip down Black Cloud was only so - so. The few groomed runs we were on continued to be very nice.

After picking up my daughter at 2:30, I was surprised to find my crowd fears coming true. The line up at Elk was enough to send us back to Timber and even there the corrals were full. Still the actual wait was probably only about five minutes as was the wait up at White Pass. I heard some complaints about the volume of people on the runs, but it wasn't a big issue on our few runs. In any event, it was a beautiful day and just really nice to be out on the mountain.

At 6:30 it is -6 C at the house and the sky appears to be clear.


Soft and pretty in the center of Currie.

The steep south ridge of Currie bowl looms above the center trees.

Looking North up the Elk Valley from near the bottom of Currie. It is just below this that the hard stuff starts.

The Knots Chutes in Timber Bowl. Shakey's Acres are at the extreme top left.

A frequently repeated shot of Currie Bowl from the top of White Pass. The Three Sisters rise above Mt. Fernie in the background.

In the very gentle trees in the upper part of Currie, with Polar Peak in the background.

A glowing Polar Peak above Currie Bowl.