Craig's Report - April 16, 1998


What a Sweet Afternoon

Summery weather has kept my interest down and me off the slopes the last few days, but yesterday I realized the end was indeed near.  The resulting relapse into ski fever made me intent on getting out today.  Unfortunately the conditions looked bleak this morning with a combination of overcast skies and a heavy frost.  Although still determined to go out, I decided to wait until afternoon and was rewarded with a few hours of glorious sunshine.  I headed out about 1:30 and seemed to just hit the sweet spot of the day.  Virtually everything was soft without being rotten and the turns were easy almost everywhere.

Was it really better than other days I have moped about?  I really don't know since perceived conditions seem to be about 80 percent attitude, 10 percent the current state of the snow surface, 5 percent weather and 3 percent bad arithmetic.  All I can say is I was stoked and had a blast, even after the clouds rolled back in.  Everyone else I talked to seemed pretty happy too, so it probably wasn't that somebody spiked my Cheerios or something.

Since everything was good, it is easier to list the minor exceptions.  Cedar Ridge and the upper parts of Easter bowl had some spots that were a bit firm, not really icy, but not very soft either.  You needed to keep to the right on part of lower North Ridge to avoid the growing bare spots and Kangaroo was closed.  I didn't bother investigating Wallaby, but it usually suffers in the spring too.  The very bottom of Dipsey right by the base was more slushy puddles than real snow, but you still didn't seem to be hitting anything underneath.

Hmm, let's see ... nope I think that is it and everything else was wonderful.   Some upper parts even had a layer of relatively new dense snow which was particularly silky and pleasant.  Upper Steep and Deep comes to mind as a nice example of this.

Of course sunshine is nice for pictures, so I am required to inflict a random sample on you.   This is Snake Main from near the top of the KC Chutes.  Very tasty, as were the Chutes.

This is looking straight back up Blueberry at the cornices overhanging upper Cedar.

Although you can't see them in this shrunken image, there were tracks off of top of Polar Peak down through the chute in the middle of the picture.  It has been a while since I have seen folks do this, and since there were no big pink blotches on the snow I assume they made it okay.

Here the Meat Hook (ne Face Lift) delivers some more cargo to the top.   That is Easter Bowl in the near background and Morrisey Ridge across the valley.

Finally another shot showing Easter Bowl and Lizard, this time from about where the Elk Quad dumps you.  That is the bottom of the Bear Lift at the right.

WebKid!

I received an email message from a reader last week suggesting I start a little enterprise where I charged folks who were building in Highline Estates a fee to take and post pictures showing the progress of their projects.  I wasn't interested, but I proposed it to my 10 year old son as a sort of cyber lemonade stand type of business.   He was initially dubious, but warmed to the idea considerably when he realized that people might actually send him money to do this.  He has now become quite enthusiastic and I may well have created a monster here, but it is clearly my dadly duty to help him out with a plug. <g>

I don't know if anyone is actually interested in this, but if you are building up on the hill and would like to see how things are going when you can't make it out and can spare a buck a week for a budding entrepreneur, perhaps you should check it out.  The basic scheme is that he would go up once a week and take one or two pictures of each subscribing property and then either post them on his web page or email them to you.   If you wanted more pictures or greater frequency or specific shots, I think he is pretty open to other arrangements as well.  He is calling his little venture WebKid Enterprises, but he doesn't have his main page finished just yet.  He did go out yesterday and take some sample pictures of the properties currently under construction and has posted them at http://redtree.com/davin/webkid/highline980415.htm. You can email him at davin@redtree.com.

Okay that is the end of the ad, but I must warn you that daddy will probably have to have plug it again when he has his signup page ready.

Summer Reports?

I know, I know, doesn't this thing ever end.  I'm almost done.  Several people have asked me whether I will be doing any reports during the summer.  I haven't normally done very many of these, because I wasn't sure that anyone would be interested, or for that matter what I would report on.  I am willing to post something, probably dull like how my crabgrass is coming, every couple of weeks if there is any interest.  If you have any thoughts on this, please let me know.

Okay, that's it.  It is 6C and cloudy at 6:30 PM.

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