Craig's Report - April 14, 1999


Gorgeous Day!

Picture 1
(Griz Peak above the Cruiser trees)

It was a bright beautiful day in the mountains. Everywhere you looked there was a tedious procession of one wonderful vista after another. :-) I could not head out until after noon, but that seemed to work out well, for while there was some new snow up top (it rained hard at the base after I posted my report on Monday), things were definitely better in the sun.

On upper Cedar Ridge the snow was pretty good and relatively travelled, but the farther you went down the crunchier and lumpier it got.


 


(Grooming on Cedar Ridge?)

Firm was definitely the word by the time I got down here in the little diagonal gully that runs across the bottom of Cedar Ridge. Finding groomer spoor on Cedar Ridge is a bit unusual, but both Monday and today I found evidence that our tracked friends have been venturing from their normal grazing grounds. Despite the fairly hard conditions, the moguls were still quite skiable since they were not particularly rutted, so as a matter of principle I skied them instead. <g>

The cats had been busy elsewhere as well and you could even have a pretty pleasant cruise down Heartland today, where I was more than happy to enjoy their handiwork.

 

Picture 1
(Lizard Bowl)

Over in Easter Bowl there was more new snow and it looked lovely indeed. It did in fact provide a few nice turns from the Face Lift traverse, but things became progressively cruddier and somewhat icy near the bottom of the bowl. In contrast there was no somewhat about the ice on Freeway.


 


(In Currie Bowl with the top of White Pass in the background)

On the sunny sides of the slopes though, things were very nice. Sunnyside (what an apt name) had the type of soft hero corn that permits casual turns even in normally butt clenching circumstances.

The Concussion Chutes in Currie hadn't really gone to corn, but were soft and really decent skiing, at least for my tastes. There was a bit of a crud feel to them, but generally this was the next best thing to powder. The alder gully beside the Currie run out was rather interesting skiing this afternoon, for the right side was quite hard while the left was soft corn. Scrape - shlup - scrape - shlup - it was actually more fun than it sounds. <g>


 

Picture 1
(Lizard from the Currie Ridge)

Lower runs were once again nicely corned and soft but not sticky. When a lift companion pointed out that Lower North Ridge was still showing no signs of bare spots or deterioration, I realized that I had become so used to this essentially perfect spring coverage that I had forgotten the normal shade hugging adventures heading down there late in the season.

It was bright out today and remembering your sun block would have been a good idea. I didn't and as a result was warned off the hill by the tingling of my face a bit sooner than I would have preferred.


 

I can imagine someone reading this report and seeing lots of words like ice and crud and getting altogether the wrong impression of the day's skiing. It was just wonderful out there. Although I have some sort of perverse habit of wandering into places where I know things might be marginal, a kind of demented curiosity, I am sure most normal folks just cranked in run after run in the abundant good stuff.

At 5:15 P.M. it is 13 C on the porch and sunny.

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