Heinz's Report - January 23, 2003

What a Difference a Day Makes

It snowed all night and I awoke to about 10 cm of new snow this morning. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed as they had promised us 15 cm. When I headed out this morning it was minus 7 Celsius and still snowing lightly. By the time I got to the top of Elk I was pleasantly surprised as the snow seemed to be intensifying and the winds were blowing. This was a good sign.

I headed out to Easter Bowl and found untracked powder over the boots. It sure seemed like more than 10 cm! What surprised me even more was that the hard stuff from the previous day did not seem to be a factor underneath the oh-so soft turns. What a welcome relief from the past week! I decided to head over to Timber Chair and see what had happened there overnight. I had promised myself that as soon as we got a dump of fresh snow I was going to try out Siberia Ridge. My wife and I walked it last fall when Wally and the hill crew were about halfway through their trail widening on this run and it looked promising.

The run down Siberia Ridge did not fail my expectations. It reminded me so much of the good old narrow trail runs in the east � especially Vermont. But the fresh stuff is the crowning glory. There was one sketchy bit where the snow still had failed to cover the uglys, but you could navigate it reasonably well. The best part was coming out to lower Siberia Ridge - which is always good - after having a pretty decent long run from the top. A definite recommend after new snow!

Next it was back up to Morning Glory. It was 10:30 now and the considerable traffic on the hill today had managed to ski it out by now. Nevertheless, still soft and pleasant. The rest of the morning was spent skiing on the groomed runs with friends. It was well skied out by then, but still much better than the past few days � soft chunky chop. After lunch it was the kamikaze men�s group! We took in runs on Easter � choppy, well skied; Milky Way � very excellent and deep freshies still; Concussion Chutes � very excellent, deep steep snow; and back again to Morning Glory which surprisingly was better than earlier in the day. It had snowed all day and it was starting to fill in again! Whew � that was a long day, but as Robbie Burns would say (it�s his day this Friday you know) � a Graand Day!

Postscript Last night we had four of the World Cup competitors over for a delicious home cooked meal prepared by my daughter. The Organizers had set up a program for the events this week, one of which had the having a number of the competitors to their homes for dinner. It�s a testament to the spirit of this fine community that we had more volunteers than competitors! We were lucky to have some of the Canadian Freestyle Aerial team to our place and you couldn�t have met four nicer young people. Go Canada Go!

At 8:00 pm it�s plus 2 Celcius outside and raining lightly. Based on today�s conditions � where it was raining lightly at the very bottom, but snowing considerably at the top � this bodes well for more powder tomorrow.

Heinz - heinzr@far.redtree.com