Craig's Report - December 15, 2006

The boot deep snow in the driveway this morning promised great things as my daughter (school free Friday) and I trudged up to the hill this morning. True it was the wet snowball packing stuff, but it seemed likely that it would be deeper and lighter up on the hill. Indeed it was and the luscious powder turns available in uncut snow were of very high quality. The fly in the ointment was that very high winds kept the Timber Chair closed and after days of the hill being empty, there now seemed to be an abundance of folks trying hard to turn the remaining terrain into mogul fields. In fact it wasn�t exactly crowded as line ups were minimal to nonexistent, but those that were there, including us, seemed particularly dedicated to leaving no powder undisturbed.

That doesn�t mean we didn�t find some fine lines that were simply excellent. Even where packed, the soft moguls were friendly, although in a few higher traffic areas some hints of firmness underneath were emerging. The packed wet snow right near the bottom could be a bit grabby and uneven, but provided good coverage and was fine for the minimal use we gave it. Although there were only three green bars on the run board, this translated into all of Cedar below the Boom chair cat track and Lizard below Tower Six road, although only the very bottom part of Easter was open.

Strangely wind was not an issue at all in Cedar or on the Boomerang runs and although there could be some pretty big gusts in Lizard, they didn�t seem all that bad. However, given how windy I have seen it at the top of Timber when the lift was operating, I can only imagine it must have been pretty intense up there today to keep the lift closed.

At 15:50 it is -1 C at the house and overcast, although the snow has just stopped.


Soft sweetness on Cedar Ridge, at least as long as you avoid the firmer bits of flora.

It didn�t take long for the lower part of Cedar Ridge to pack out, but it still made for nice turns as well demonstrated by this passerby.

In the trees in the center of Cedar.

Cruiser (running from top right to lower left), with Cedar Ridge behind it.

In a chute near King Fir.

One of the main King Fir channels is temporarily closed due to tree. Note the KF tag on the tree on the right.