John's Report - March 27, 2006

Weekend Conditions Still Mixed but with New Snow

Snow started falling Friday night and continued off and on throughout Saturday and into Sunday morning. All told, 5 to six inches of new snow fell. The snow was not perfect, unless you wanted to make a snowman, but it did cover the crust that forms each night as the temperature falls below zero. On both Saturday and Sunday, by afternoon, the temperatures were about 5 degrees at the bottom and near freezing on top, with snow generally much softer than in the morning. As one descended, the snow stiffened up and and finally give way to slush at about the level of the Bear�s Den. The wet snow helped cover the icy hard pack but it was still evident underneath, especially in well travelled regions of mountain. Towards the bottom, the heavy snow became quite grippy, which lead to a number of injuries on Saturday. Nonetheless, the snow significantly improved conditions on the steeps.

On both Saturday and Sunday, the best areas were those that do not get significant sun. The 123s and the trees off Cedar ridge were particularly good. Also, runs such as the Bear Chutes and Linda�s Run were good, albeit heavily tracked leaving soft, wet crud over a somewhat icy base. In between these two runs, Boom Bowl offered some reasonably good skiing, particularly on Saturday. Half way down, Boom trees on the skier's right were hardly tracked and offered a fun alternative route to Boom Chair. Again, on both Saturday and Sunday, Kangaroo, on Skier's left, was relatively soft and untracked the whole way down.

Snake Main provided precisely five soft and basically untracked turns before transforming into a crud covered icy mess but on the positive side, not a rock or stump can be found in KC Chutes, which are passable.

On the new side, Shakey�s Acres at the top of White Pass were very good on Saturday but became hard and chattery by Sunday. Currie Glades were quite nice all weekend long, with soft turns available if you could dodge the icy bits. The same could not be said for Puff/Liftline trees which would have been suited for skates. Yet Liftline itself and Big Bang held up nicely.

The weather gurus are predicting mid-single digits highs and freezing lows for Monday to be followed by double digit highs and above freezing lows by mid-week. If true, we should, very shortly, be enjoying true spring skiing.

Happy Tracks.


Top of White Pass - The Hill was relatively busy both Saturday & Sunday

The trees of Currie Glades, while moguled, offered good turning conditions with lots of soft new (& heavy) snow

Although I wasn't prepared to try it, many others were coming down Concussion Chutes this weekend

Although not entirely evident in this photo, there was lots of fresh wind sift all weekend in the 123s, which may have been the best place for skiing if you didn't mind skating Tresspass Trail back to White Pass

There were fast soft turns on 3 of the 123s

Looking across Cedar Bowl to the top of Bear Chair

As this picture shows, the Snake Ridge side of Cedar offered relatively untracked skiing on Sunday afternoon

KC Chutes had lots of crud on top of ice but it wasn't that bad considering how terrible KC can be

A view of Timber Chair in Puff Trees. It was ruts on top of ice with crud to make things even more interesting

Bear Chutes while cruddy, were still reasonably good all the way to Boom Chair