April 10, 2002

It was just pouring outside this morning and while the trees were white farther up the hill, it was hardly enticing. It seemed to stop in the afternoon though and I headed out for a couple of late runs. Of course it started to rain again as I walked up to the lifts, but on the hill itself it was more of a wet graupel than straight rain.

There was a fair accumulation of new snow up top and Currie, Upper Lizard and most of Cedar were closed, while lower Lizard and Cedar Ridge appeared to have just opened. The snow on the later was often knee deep and while very wet, provided some pretty decent, albeit rather strange skiing. Every turn would unleash a horde of snow balls that would tumble down the slope, increasing in size as they went. Where others had skied it looked just like an avalanche debris field, but fortunately the balls were still fairly soft and it was possible to ski through them. Still the best skiing was in the abundant untracked stuff where the turning was surprisingly easy despite how wet the snow was. In more traveled areas the snow had packed into lumpy firm stuff that still held a pretty good edge, but which I did not find very pleasant.

At 16:20 it is 6 C on the porch and the rain has stopped. The sky even has a few blue patches now, but hopefully it doesn't clear and freeze or it will be really horrible up there.