Craig's Report - December 22, 1997

The Bunny Report

My opening day report did not have much to say about the beginner and intermediate runs on the lower mountain resulting in email asking about those areas. I really couldn't answer since I just had not had much of a look, but today was family ski day with my six year old daughter and we visited many of those slopes.

We have received a little snow each day and this has left the lower slopes in pretty decent shape. Some like Dipsey (in the picture) were very good with only the odd piece of straw sticking through down near the bottom. This was also generally true of the Deer runs, although parts of Meadow were a little furry

as was Power Trip as my daughter demonstrates in this picture. The things sticking through were generally just straw and twigs that you could ski over with impunity, but there was the odd harder thing to watch out for. Certainly these slopes could be vulnerable to a prolonged rain or warm spell, but even a moderate dump or a few days of incremental snow such as we have been getting should bury everything and keep them in shape for the rest of the winter.

It was a good day for bunny skiing as the Boomerang chair was closed for most of the day due to some sort of mechanical problem. It was still possible to ski Cedar Bowl as one could escape by means of the Haul Back and the long and boring Cedar Trail cat track. Even without Boom running, the lift lines were quite modest on Bear and essentially nonexistant elsewhere. Not a good profit indicator for the hill on a week when schools are out for Christmas break.

It wasn't all that cold today in terms of temperature (about -6C at 4:30 PM), but a gusty wind made things pretty chilly, especially on the upper part of the mountain. My son and I took a run up there this afternoon and still found some pretty nice snow, although there was the occasional wind swept spot. We even came down China Wall and it wasn't in bad shape. Freeway on the other hand definitely did not look ready for prime time.