Craig's Report - January 19, 2006OpeningsWith no significant snow for the last few days, the hill has been able to open some additional terrain and indeed I was able to ski in all five bowls today, as long as you don�t take that too literally in the case of Currie. The upper parts of Cedar and Lizard as well as almost all of Currie remain closed and I would imagine will remain so until they can deal with the cornices on the ridges and that will probably require good helicopter flying conditions. Lizard from Tower Six road down and Cedar below the Boomerang Chair access opened yesterday and I think Anaconda Glades might have opened the day before. A lot of snow had accumulated since these areas were last open, but the skiing experience was one of boot deep slightly stiff snow that sliced and diced quite nicely, although for the most part I wouldn�t call it powder. By today most of this terrain had been transformed into soft pack, but some freshies were still available, especially if you ventured further afield. Skirting the edge of Fish on Red Tree was particularly nice today, but reaching it involved a fair climb diagonally across Snake Ridge. Climbing in the bowl itself would put you in closed terrain. What is truly great is how the new base depth leaves things like KC Chutes not only skiable, but relatively wide open. Everywhere you look, alders and brush have disappeared leaving uncluttered slopes and glades. We are at that blissful Fernie point where base, at least on the upper mountain, is no longer an issue and on any given day, all that matters is whatever happened in the previous couple of days. Lower on the mountain the effects of last weekend's wet weather are still evident, although some snow arrived Monday night to soften things a bit. Off piste stuff that hadn�t been skied has a non breaking ice crust, which hopefully has enough patches of the new snow lying around to let you trace turns through. The groomed runs tend to be firm, but at least the ones I was on did not seem truly icy. At 17:30 it is -1 C at the house and overcast.
|
|