Heinz's Report - April 03, 2003

A Pleasant Day Surprise

I haven�t been up since our glorious Thursday last week and this week so far didn�t look too inviting for me even though Bernie told us was fine on Tuesday - if not variable. Last night it was beginning to look like winter again as big fat flakes began to fall and when we awoke this morning we were greeted with about 10 cm of pretty good looking stuff on our deck. The sun was poking through the clouds and we decided to get our bums into gear and get some turns in.

On the way up the mountain on the Elk chair, the new snow had definitely made the bottom of the hill look respectable again and the usual scraping sounds on Elk were not to be heard. Up in Lizard Bowl the new snow on the groomers was very pleasing, soft and a good warm up. We headed over to White Pass and did a run down Milky Way which was very good on top, but the crunchy ice underneath could be heard and felt every now and then. It wasn�t quite �dust on crust� as the new snow was heavier but still quite inviting. When the crunchies underneath couldn�t be heard it even felt a little bit like some of the better days this year.

We did a run down Concussion which had a number of good parts as well as some tricky ones. Dave said it was soft on top, crunchy in the middle, and soft on the bottom. Isn�t that a sandwich or something? After a second run down Tom�s which was a bit better, we went back to Cedar Bowl and did a run down the inside part of Fish Bowl and then over to Red Tree. Definitely the best run of the day � no crunchies to be found or heard anywhere! By this time the sun had given way to some pretty serious snow falling. It�s always the best time for me over on Snake listening to the big snow flakes fallling amongst the solitude of the big lodgepole pines. We stopped for some coffee in the Mean bean and decided to head back up to Snake. Unfortunately the ski patrol had decided to close it with newly falling snow starting to pile up now. We went back to Timber and did a run down Morning Glory which was still somewhat untracked even at this late stage of the day.

All in all it was a surprisingly good day for April and the new snow definitely spruced things up on the hill. The snow started to peter out by the late afternoon but they are calling for some more overnight. I think we�ll definitely head out again tomorrow and see if they�ve opened up Snake. It should be sweet indeed!

At 9:00 pm it�s zero degrees Celsius on our back porch and snowing lightly.

Heinz - heinzr@far.redtree.com



Dave and Anita on the traverse to Snake having a moment in the snowflakes.

Milky Way.

Kathy in Milky Way.

Traverse on Snake to Red Tree.

Anita in the inside part of Fish Bowl. Deep eh!

Traverse back to Red Tree, inside part of Fish Bowl.

Dave in the inside part of Fish Bowl. Take that Brett!

Morning Glory. Mammoth Head in the distance.

Oops how did this get in here? The FAR ticket office crew unwinding after a hard season. Lucky Matt.