My son Adam and I flew from LAX to Whitefish 1/30 for a scheduled 3 days lift served at Big Mountain, Fernie and 3 days at Island Lake snowcat skiing. It had rained to the top (7000+ feet) at all 3 locations on Super Bowl Sunday and then froze over the next 3 days. Wednesday night it snowed 8 inches at Big Mountain and Island Lake and 4 inches at Fernie. It was also snowing lightly when we were driving up the mountain at midnight Thursday after our flight.
On Friday morning we woke up to find that the snowlevel had risen to 5,500 feet. It was mist and drizzle all day the base (4,700) with some wet snow at the top of Big Mountain. We met a host at 10:30 for an intro tour, which consisted this day of one groomed run on each of the 4 exposure directions of the mountain. The host did not want to be responsible for guiding skiers off piste under the current conditions. I used my Chubbs and ventured a few afternoon runs off the trails for about 500 vertical off the top north and east. We quit at 3PM, and the gloves we used Friday took a day and a half to dry out.
I modified our plans to stay an extra day at Big Mountain, because I knew with the rain that Fernie, with base elevation over 1,000 feet lower, would be worse. The groomed runs at the bottom of Big Mountain were well covered and springlike with no dirt or ice patches that I had seen on Craig's (and his successors) pictures from Fernie.
Saturday at Big Mountain was a pleasant surprise. The upper mountain had received a couple inches overnight, and the lower groomed runs seemed to dry out without becoming icy. weather was changeable, varying from fog to partial clearing with an occasional 10-minute flurry of snow. The off trail skiing on the north side, and also the highest east-facing drops like North Bowl and Schmidt's Chute were quite good. The upper 1,000 vertical of the front (south) side got chopped as the day wore on and was well skier packed by afternoon. All the groomed runs were in good shape, and they have enough pitch and variation to maintain interest.
On Friday morning we woke up to find that the snowlevel had risen to 5,500 feet. It was mist and drizzle all day the base (4,700) with some wet snow at the top of Big Mountain. We met a host at 10:30 for an intro tour, which consisted this day of one groomed run on each of the 4 exposure directions of the mountain. The host did not want to be responsible for guiding skiers off piste under the current conditions. I used my Chubbs and ventured a few afternoon runs off the trails for about 500 vertical off the top north and east. We quit at 3PM, and the gloves we used Friday took a day and a half to dry out.
I modified our plans to stay an extra day at Big Mountain, because I knew with the rain that Fernie, with base elevation over 1,000 feet lower, would be worse. The groomed runs at the bottom of Big Mountain were well covered and springlike with no dirt or ice patches that I had seen on Craig's (and his successors) pictures from Fernie.
Saturday at Big Mountain was a pleasant surprise. The upper mountain had received a couple inches overnight, and the lower groomed runs seemed to dry out without becoming icy. weather was changeable, varying from fog to partial clearing with an occasional 10-minute flurry of snow. The off trail skiing on the north side, and also the highest east-facing drops like North Bowl and Schmidt's Chute were quite good. The upper 1,000 vertical of the front (south) side got chopped as the day wore on and was well skier packed by afternoon. All the groomed runs were in good shape, and they have enough pitch and variation to maintain interest.