Craig's Report - February 06, 2007

Afternoon Wisdom

The temperature soared on the mountain yesterday and everything became soft to above the top of Bear. After a couple of snowless weeks of skiing firm surfaces of crisp edge worthiness, but Teutonic immovability, my first reaction was the snow seemed irresolute and kind of wussy. However after just a couple of turns, the pleasures of skiing compliant snow returned and with even the South facing slopes once again friendly, a great day was had by all. However it was clear a price would have to be paid if the temperature fell without a generous fresh fall of snow. Sure enough a clear night of sub zero temperatures left the snow in my front yard hard as a rock.

As is my custom, I hid inside until noon, by which time the temperature at the base was once again above freezing. From the Bear�s Den down it had melted enough to at least provide patches of scrapings on which one could navigate the still firm surface underneath, but farther up the hard polished tops of things like Cruiser suggested why morning skiers didn�t have any kind words about earlier conditions. As the afternoon progressed and the freezing level climbed further, things continued to improve.

While the groomed cruisers did progress to the okay stage, some claimed good, the off groomed stuff, particularly farther up, struggled to just get out of the lethal stage. Late in the day I did manage runs on 1,2,3 and Concussion Chute that weren�t too bad despite the trepidation about possible long slides fed by natural cowardice and the many warning signs. They were firm and somewhat bumpy, but not rock hard or particularly hard to get an edge into.

So all in all the afternoon turned out to be much better than I anticipated, but still a very long way from great. Unfortunately it sounds like tomorrow�s highs will be well below freezing with only minor new accumulations possible.

At 16:30 it is +3 C at the house and overcast.


Looking towards the Face Lift from the top of Bear with one of the many ice warning signs displayed today.

Lizard Bowl from the top of Arrow.

The terrain park has been removed from Giggly Gully...

and moved to the connector between lower Ballet and Lizard. This is taken from where the cat track from the bottom of China Wall meets Ballet and passes under the Bear Chair.

Cruiser was still brutally hard at the top even in the early afternoon, but by then it had at least softened from about here (the junction with Cedar Center) down.

Speaking of Cedar Center, maybe it would be better than Cruiser. It wasn�t.

By late afternoon, three of 1,2,3 had edged up into the sort of okay category.

This hump on the skier�s right of the bottom of Currie Bowl is always nasty and not indicative of overall conditions, but some minor stuff was starting to show through in places like Puff and Heartland.