January 09, 2002

When the rasp of your skis is loud enough to make you wonder about hearing protection, you probably aren't having a good time. I didn't really expect to though as yesterday's rain soaked slush had frozen solid under last night's clear sky. This left me less that enthusiastic, but for some reason I did slip out for a couple of runs just before closing and found things about as bad as I feared.

The runs had generally frozen after they had been groomed and were rather lumpy and bumpy along with being icy. In places like Cruiser, a single cat track had been cut through the slop to become a frozen trench that must have been delightful. Most of the closed stuff was now open, but I doubt that any life insurance company would have honored the policy of someone venturing far off of the groomed today.

The mainly in the title is because the top half of White Pass was actually pretty good. One of my runs was into Currie on 1, 2, 3 and one was quite nice. Two was also pretty good but with that rasp occasionally being heard and by the bottom of three, things were not very friendly. Below Trespass Trail it was seriously ugly, although not according to Richard of Rip n Richard fame, who scooted by me on the ice and rocks proclaiming it wasn't bad at all. He is a much better skier than me and I really like his restaurant's food, but I think I will be looking elsewhere for my skiing recommendations in the future. :-)

At a quarter to five it is 3 C at the house and mainly clear.