John's Report - December 20, 2007

More Snow

Around 11:00 am it was warm & looked like it was clearing. For the next three hours it dumped snow. With everything closed in Lizard Bowl, & the top of Cedar, the best option was Boom Ridge/Bowl & accompanying bits (or maybe off Cedar Ridge which I didn’t try). A trip down Linda’s Run with old camera & new lanyard, revealed overnight snow had significantly lightened the heavier snow of yesterday.

Boom was just fine. Except for the first couple of turns off the drop-in, the snow was soft, if somewhat cut up. Lots of lines had snow flowing over the knee caps.

Tower Six cat track opened up just below the snow plot, around tower 14, at about 2:00 pm, which meant Sunny Side & related runs opened up. At the same time, the skies cleared and the morning's warm air suddenly turned into an arctic cold. One rotation back to the top of Bear Chair & the air was again warm & humid & there was once again an heavy snow fall. Fernie’s weather is a knife edge.

Currie Bowl didn’t open & neither did upper Lizard or Cedar. Speculation is all will open tomorrow. Someone else will be taking first tracks on Decline tomorrow; a pity.

The day ended around 4 pm with a thick slushy rain at the base & what looked to be a blizzard at the bottom of Great Bear Chair.


A view down Linda's Run, which is still a little touchy but much improved even over yesterday.

Towards the bottom of Linda's Run just above Cedar Trail.

A gander at the forbidden fruit of an untracked Lizard Bowl

On the right is the bottom of Stag's Leap, just above the top of Deer Chair with a virgin Currie Bowl in the background. So much snow & so little time.

Sunny Side, as seen shortly after opening.

The ski-out at the bottom of Sunny Side still had lots of tracks around 3 pm

Another picture of Lizard

A view of part of China Wall

And, I think, a view of Sun Up around 3:30 pm