Craig's Report - February 11, 2008
Lovely Non-Powder
More powder seemed unlikely today, given that the temperature yesterday had soared from -15 C in the morning into positive territory in the afternoon and was accompanied by significant rain. True, the snow line remained only a little above the base area, but light and fluffy didn't seem to be in the cards and indeed it wasn't. However the skiing was excellent nonetheless and given that I had pretty much overdosed on powder dumps, particularly in my driveway, it was actually a nice change.
On most of the mountain, the off piste snow was sort of like a stiff foam into which you would only sink perhaps ankle deep. I found it delightful with the smoothness of powder, but with confidence inspiring grip and no nasty face shots. However I hadn't skied since Thursday, when despite wonderfully deep high quality snow and my skiing it well (at least for me), I just couldn't extract much joy from it. Maybe I had just hit some sort of season powder limit and was due for a change and perhaps if we had to ski thigh deep fluff everyday, it would be days like today that everybody would dream about.
The high traverse into Cedar from the top of the Bear Chair was closed, but you could go in at the old bear cave entrance or the old Hut trail, so Snake was accessible with only a bit of climbing. On the new side, you had to access the Currie Chutes by the lower county line traverse and the saddles were closed, but Easter and the front three were accessible.
Only the very bottom of the mountain, say below Deer Trail seemed to have suffered any serious rain damage and there is very little off trail skiing down there anyway. The groomed runs were firm and lower Incline in particular probably would have seemed like a skating rink if it were not for a few centimetres of snow that fell during the day and provided some traction.
At 17:50 it is 1 C at the house and overcast.
 Folks around here are starting to have problems figuring out what to do with all the snow. |
 The snow became a little funky near the bottom, but was still quite good right down to the trail out. This is from the same spot as the previous picture. |
 Even with the stiff snow skis were trying to escape. I had passed the owner of this one way up above the tree band in Gorbi Bowl. Fortunately I was able to bellow loud enough to attract his friend's attention, even though they were well out of sight. |
 Why it is a good idea to know the lay of the land in Gorbi Bowl, unless you like it really steep and bushy. |
 Please watch your head! The now low lying Cedar branches about the lower choke point on this Windows chute, can make keeping low a necessity. For once the choke point wasn't icy or nasty at all. |
 It doesn't show up well in this image, but that relatively undisturbed light crust was a very nice ski. |
 Our neighbour's house doesn't have much of a view from the main floor anymore. |
