Craig's Report - January 2, 1997 - 4:30 PM


Miserable Mess

The hill dished up a little of everything from the bag of tricks that can make a skier miserable, except ice and rocks; well maybe ice. Heavy wet goggle blotting snow on top, pouring rain on the bottom, fog, rain rotted snow, sticky moguls separated by slick patches in near zero visibility, take your pick. Only the lower runs, Boom runs and Cedar Ridge were open, with everything on the skiers right of the T-Bar closed. Visibility on the top ranged from poor to worse, although it was fairly clear down in the rain. It was snowing all the way down to the bottom of Haulback, but on the other side of the Ridge it was raining almost to the top of Haulback.

To reassert my general lack of intelligence, I took runs down both Cedar Ridge and the Bear Chutes. The good news was it wasn't heavily tracked. <g> I actually found the top parts not too bad, but I think I have more of a masochistic affinity for slop carving than most.. It was also a good opportunity to practice those jump turns, especially farther down where the snow was very sticky rain rotted glop. The groomed lower runs also provided some nice cruising carves, albeit very wet ones, however I doubt if many of seemingly hundreds of people groping their way down Bear would really have appreciated these few positive comments. There were no lift lines, but there were a surprising number of people on the hill all things considered

On the bright side the weather report is predicting colder weather for the Elk Valley tomorrow, so it looks like drier and lower snow is a definite possibility.

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