Craig's Report - January 14, 1999


80 Ways to Make Mold and Still Ski Powder

Picture 1
(The White Pass Chair is OPEN!)

I hate rain in winter and boy did it rain today. How come Toronto the flat is getting all that snow and we get rain?

I probably wouldn't have headed out in that downpour if I hadn't had my men's day class. Boy am I glad I did, for the White Pass chair opened about 2:00 PM and lived up to its billing. While the lower mountain endured monsoons, the entire White Pass lift was well up in the snow zone.

 


(Visibility wasn't the greatest at the top of White Pass, but check the snow on the trees)

The top of White Pass was virtually in a white out from the falling and blowing snow and Currie and a bunch of Timber was closed, but what was open was great. The snow was a bit dense, but after our recent drought it was close enough to powder for me. Even with the closures there was a lot of terrain to explore and we were perpetually in a semi lost state.

 


 


(Middle of Timber somewhere)

The intermediate runs in the middle of Timber were surprisingly interesting, with some very nice glades between them and more pitch than I expected. Quite a bit seems to consist of short steepish slopes followed by a bit of a bench and then another steeper pitch. Not surprisingly nothing was groomed today and I suspect the cat fleet will have to be beefed up quite a bit if they plan to keep all this terrain groomed for intermediates.

 


(Lots of nice untracked, for about another 30 seconds)

Overall it was an excellent afternoon of skiing, with lots of nice soft turns and plenty of interesting terrain to explore. The hill already seems vastly bigger than it did and when the closures of Currie and the rest of Timber are lifted it is definitely going to seem world class in scale.

Mean while down at the bottom the rain continued and it was a pretty sorry mess. When I left the bar a little after 5:30 (beer is an integral part of the men's day ritual along with scratching, burping and the other disgusting things that comprise male bonding <g>), it was just pouring. There was enough water flowing down the ski hill road that I probably could have kayaked home. (What me exaggerate).

 

At 7:30 PM it is 3C at the house with a driving rain. Please send life jackets.

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