Craig's Report - January 10, 2007

Ever Changing

Last weekend the hill was a powder paradise. Monday had mainly packed, but still delightful snow. Tuesday it rained at the bottom and heavy snow ruled, but surprisingly I found the actually skiing kind of pleasant, although the same could not be said for the soggy chair lift rides. Last night it was still warm and mainly raining at the house, but by morning all had frozen. Every day, a new adventure.

While many of the lower runs were certainly icy, it was the wind that was once again the dominant factor in today�s conditions. A thick wind slab was common on the upper mountain and this could vary from really rather nice to rather challenging. In many places the continual wind surfacing meant fresh tracks every run and while real powder was the exception on my runs, a dense but enjoyable wind sift was prominent on most of them.

Even on the lower runs the wind determined, in a pretty unpredictable way, what was good and what was not. Where it decided to make some deposits, silky smooth cruising was possible, but other places were scoured down to frozen corduroy. Most were somewhere in between with a mix of ice and soft and generally skiing on the lower mountain was just a tolerable way to get to the next lift.

While it wasn�t particularly cold in terms of temperature, the wind put a definite bite in things. With temperatures scheduled to fall considerably for tomorrow and the wind to persist, it may well be below the tolerance of fair weather feet like mine. On the plus side, a bit more snow is predicted for tonight.

At 15:45 it is -4 C at the house and overcast.


Currie Chutes and the town of Fernie from the top of 1,2,3.

In this image taken from the hump on Cascade, the lower saddle is the notch on the right and Easter Bowl is at the left with Lone Fir is center top. Dancer is along the bottom.

The snow depth has reached the point where they have been able to put the cat trail below the gun tower from the top of Bear to Cruiser.

Snake Ridge in the background from the same spot at the top of Cruiser.

Looking up Trillium and Blueberry into upper Cedar Bowl.

The top part of Cedar Ridge was delightful, but by the time you started to near the cat track below King Fir, some attention to detail was required.

This chute beside Barracuda was very nice with a continuously refinished soft, but dense surface.