Craig's Report - December 13, 2004
Rain Crimes
Sadly Friday's rain turned into the predicted deluge and was followed by a freeze up on Saturday night. The resulting mess at the bottom has kept my skis in the locker (no, I don't have any rock skis), but I did walk up the mountain to mid Bear today, to see how things looked up there.
The rain had gone well above the top of the mountain, so frozen crust and ice were to be expected, but it did appear that the groomers had done a pretty good job of grinding it up on the main runs. I can't say it had me regretting not bringing skis, but folks seemed to be navigating it without too much fuss and only the occasional raucous scraping sound. Indeed the couple of folks I spoke to pronounced it just fine thanks, but in my eyes their opinion was suspect just on the grounds they were actually out skiing today.
The Bear Chair was running and the intermediate Lizard runs all appeared to be open. I also saw a skier coming down Gilmar's Trail in Currie, but could not tell if that bowl was indeed open or it was just a patroller. I didn't notice today, but I am pretty sure the Boomerang Chair was still closed, as it was when I was over there yesterday.
What can I say about the bottom of the hill other than it is in pretty tough shape. At least the colder temperatures is allowing them to make as much snow as possible. This is still mainly concentrated on the Dipsy/Lizard route and as a result it appeared to me to be the only semi reasonable way down from the old side and even at that I don't think I could take my skis through the lower part and expect them to respect me in the morning. I didn't see any remotely decent way down from the new side other than walking the last part - something a number of folks seemed to opt for.
Coming up on 17:00, it is -6 C and cloudy at the house.
 The setting sun highlights the valiant attempt to make snow above the base of the Timber Chair. |
 Lizard has been the focus of most of the snow making and provides the only sane route down from the old side. |
 Silver Fox and the Deer Chair on the left and Incline on the right. |
 Looking down towards the base of the Timber Chair from part way up Incline. |
 Arrow looked to be not bad on the groomed part, except for one bit at the cat track to Ballet. |
 Bear from the Sunup hairpin looked to have some pretty fine crushed ice. :-) Sunup also looked and sounded like it would be fine to ski. |
 Looking down China Wall (which was closed) at the now very appreciated man made snow of Dipsy. |
 Bear from the top of Elk. |
 The coverage on the upper part of Elk, although very solid, was pretty complete, but the same sure could not be said for Lower Elk. |
 The base area with the bottom of the Deer Chair on the left and the Cornerstone on the right. |