February 19, 2002

Craig's FAR Update 2002/2/19:
The Surprising Benefits of a Little Fresh

It started snowing down here just as I headed out about 11:30 this morning, but it must have been snowing earlier up top. In most places there was only a couple of centimeters of new, which seemed far from sufficient to have any real effect, but in fact it made a surprising difference. This was not the fluff on ice effect, for the new snow was dense, but silky and for the most part the underlying stuff was firm but not icy. The result was a generally smooth and enjoyable ride.

To be sure there were still some man eater moguls apparently shaped by folks who carry chainsaws, but all but the worst of them were somewhat tamed by the new layer. Otherwise the only unfriendly spot I ran into was Sunny Side where the thin new coating just wasn't up to the job of covering the frozen lumps and ice left over from the last melt down.

Keeping Sunny Side in mind, I chose the shaded side of Currie for my daily pilgrimage to the new side. Sun certainly wasn't a problem today and the top part of 1,2,3 had to be skied using Braille, but by picking the right spots farther down and over on the lower part of Anaconda, I actually managed to score a few honest to goodness ankle deep powder turns.

When I first arrived the hill seemed to be teeming with kids of various ages. It turns out that at least part of Saskatchewan as well as the University of Calgary are on break, but somehow everyone just seemed to evaporate over lunch. What is more it seems the student crowd is much more likely to stick to the runs, so it was relatively quiet off trail and all but lonely in Currie.

It was snowing pretty heavily up top, but there is now just a light mixture of rain and snow falling at the house and I can easily see the top of Bear. It is 1 C at 3 PM.