Craig's Report - February 08, 2007

Not Horrible

As feared, yesterday brought no snow and little melting with the result the skiing, at least in this ice fearing klutz�s opinion, was horrible. Courtesy of 5 cm of overnight snow and light snow that continued throughout the day, today was much improved, although generally well shy of what I would call good. Falling temperatures and modest accumulations seemed to set the stage for the dreaded dust on crust situation and while there certainly was some of that, the new snow, while light, was not fluff and did have enough substance to cushion things a bit. Of course it wasn�t nearly enough to hide the harsh reality underneath or keep from being pushed into mounds separated by slick patches, but by the end of the day it seemed possible to ski most off piste mogul runs without serious sphincter strain.

The groomed runs were generally okay even though most had hard patches. An exception was upper Falling Star beside the terrain park, which actually had lovely cruising snow. I was also surprised at how skiable 1,2,3 was. Certainly rough and clattery, but with enough new padding to allow occasional nice turns.

While conditions have improved, significantly more snow will be necessary to make things really good and to fend off the weekend crowds. Let�s hope some of those forecast flurries turn out to be the deep Fernie surprise kind.

At 16:30 it is -6 C at the house and snowing very, very lightly.


Upper Timber Bowl with the top of Highline on the left.

Looking down Blueberry, which turned out to be quite icy, so I ended taking a rare trip down Trillium, which while hard underneath, still had its new top coat.

Looking back across Cedar Bowl towards the top of the Bear Chair from the same spot.

1,2,3 was surprisingly okay.

Looking the other way from the same spot on 1,2,3.

Some of the big jumps in the Falling Star terrain park.