March 02, 2000

Yeah, Nice Enough, but where is the POWDER

I think my ability to be objective and reasonable is at an end and an episode of snobbish sniveling is in order. Sure conditions were pretty good on much of the hill today and in particular the ridiculously warm temperatures down low kept the ice at bay, but we really have only had one semi decent powder fix since the middle of January. I am sure many or most people had a good day cruising the decent groomed runs or even diddling about in the fairly soft moguls and indeed I even enjoyed the skiing. However this is not what Fernie is about and that lazy Griz had better get off his duff and start laying down some March storms.

I did a couple of runs on the Concussion chutes and one was packed very nice grippy snow with modest moguls and on the other we found some smooth confidence building and unbreaking wind crust that a friend commented was as good as groomed. I guess he meant that in a positive way. Down low there was still some scraped slick sections between the small moguls, but nothing particularly evil.

Steep and not so deep wasn't packed out, but the chopped crud was far from a treat. However farther down I did find some unchopped heavy mush that skied pretty well, at least in comparison to the crud. The trip over to Snake was an adventure as we chose to take the traverse from the top of the Face Lift. This had not been groomed and had several small slide tracks across it which provided opportunities to examine the workmanship of your bindings close up.

Perhaps one of the finest runs of the day was down the kiddies perennial favorite, Power Trip. This normal bane of a parent's existence had some very fine, very grippy snow that encouraged high bank angle turns in the narrow confines. Come to think of it, bland old Bear had some pretty nice cruising snow too. Packed of course. :-(

At 7:30 PM it is a pathetic 4 C on the porch with a light wind and a starless sky.

A couple of dot dudes make the descent from Polar Peak into Currie Bowl. (You will probably need the big picture to tell them from rocks <g>)

The lack of detail in the snow in this picture fairly accurately reflects the visibility at times on this gray day.

Line ups weren't evident except on the always slow Butt Hook (aka the Face Lift).

Griz Peak and the out of bounds Fish Bowl beyond the Snake Ridge boundary rope.