January 21, 2000

One Run Report

Don't panic, its not bad at all. I think I have used a similar title when things were terrible, but this time it was just poor planning on my part. I forgot I was to accompany my daughter's grade three class on a cross country ski outing (talk about the blind leading the blind) and when my wife reminded me I only had time for a quick scoot up the hill and back. Of course it is a nice fringe benefit of living on the hill and having a pass that it is practical to go out for just one run and one run is definitely better than no runs.

At least it was a fairly substantial run as I headed up to White Pass and came down through Currie. The bottom of the clouds was just about at the top of the Timber Chair and the upper half of White Pass chair was foggy 'feel your way down' stuff. Out on the snow fields any little shrub was a welcome oasis of orientation in the monotone white.

There wasn't any substantial new snow, but the existing chop and moguls were still nice and further improved by a bit of blow in. Turning was easy, at least once one got far enough down to see what you were turning into and I didn't encounter anything cruddy or evil in my brief excursion. The moguls on Diamond Back were very nice and the lower cruisers (the only ones I was on) were about as good as cruisers can get.

At 5:30 PM it is mainly cloudy, with a big dark cloud still sitting over the hill, and the porch thermometer is reading -4 C.