Craig's Report - February 28, 2006

To Dump or Not to Dump?

There seemed little doubt that the Griz was planning a dump when I first headed up early this afternoon as I virtually had to waddle off of the first two chair rides due to the amount of snow that had collected in my crotch during each trip. This is in line with the what the more reliable weather forecasts are saying, particularly the Elf who has pretty much had it nailed this week. However the snow then suddenly backed off, the clouds became brighter and it almost looked like it might clear up at one point. It continues to oscillate between light snow showers and brighter, but I think the Griz will ultimately stick to his original plan. In any event that is my hope and I am sticking with it.

As predicted, Sunday was lovely, but light rain started later in the day and became steady rain that lasted throughout Monday and into this morning. It appeared the rain line was once again around the Bear�s Den yesterday, but I lack personal knowledge as I valiantly stayed home. Around nine this morning the snow level dropped below the house and by noon it looked tempting enough to lure me from my cozy lair.

It was pretty good, although not yet spectacular. While the top half of White Pass was delightful, it was also all but invisible during my visit and most lower off piste stuff still bore the consequences of the previous wet goop bashing. This underlying stuff wasn�t really hard, but rather just a bit stiff and not bad in places that hadn�t been skied before. However I found the chopped stuff a bit unnerving as I tried to decide which of those recently frozen, half hidden lumps was going to break apart easily when I hit them. Most did, but a carefree ride it wasn�t.

Most of the groomed stuff was lovely, particularly when it was snowing so hard that it couldn�t get scraped off. Once the snow backed off, some raspy noises started to appear, but it was still generally good.

With all that heavy new snow up top, there were lots of closures. Essentially only Cedar Ridge and stuff over to Sun Up were open on the old side and Currie, Big Bang and Siberia Ridge were all closed on the new side.

At 16:00 it is -2 C and snowing once again.


Cedar Ridge was a mixed bag with nice new stuff covering mildly evil underpinnings.

No climbing up to Morning Glory today.

However the lower route to Morning Glory was open and the snow little disturbed and rather sweet.

Another picture on Morning Glory. This was my last run and I hadn�t really bother to take any pictures up until this point.

I was surprised to see the sign line on the way over towards the bottom of Hell�s Gate was open, but it became obvious that the snow above had already lost its grip.