Bernie's Report - January 24, 2003

Poor Visibility, Great Skiing

According to the official ski report, faxed to me this morning, we had received 20 cm of fresh in the past 48 hours. It has been snowing all day, despite the mild temperatures. The snow was light at the base and only a couple of centimeters accumulated on my driveway during the day. However, the intensity increased with altitude and the accumulation on the mountain is more substantial. Skiing on all runs above the base of the Bear Chair is very, very good. I overheard skiers saying that the conditions were excellent, even fabulous! Perhaps living here jades my perception but I reserve these superlatives for light powder above the knees.

As you can see from the photos, the visibility was restricted and the light flat. I stuck to the treed runs on the "old side" where I could more easily discern which way was up. The alders are gradually disappearing below the surface of the snow and "new" areas are opening up with each snow fall. There are still quite a few big bumps on most of the runs but fresh lines can be found with much difficulty. By late afternoon the groomed runs were a series of soft bumps with the occasional hard patch in between. As one approached the base area the snow became progressively grabbier (is this a word?) I skied back to the base on Incline and the skiing was very good until the bottom of the half pipe, at which point, my skis got very twitchy... I concluded that this was due to a combination of grabby snow, freshly tuned skis and poor technique... with emphasis on the latter!

At 5 pm it is +1C at the house and fine, wet snow is falling.

Bernie - bernie@far.redtree.com