Today confirmed the wisdom of my decision to spend an extra day at Whitefish, and to return there and go home Thursday 2/6 instead of Saturday 2/8. One day at Fernie was enough under current conditions.
Being forewarned, we ventured onto the hill at 10AM. It was sunny and mostly clear, which means in Canada that all the rained upon areas had frozen overnight. In the morning we stuck to the Bear chair groomed runs. The original Fernie terrain only goes up to 5,500 feet (without Face Lift, which was closed), the level of Friday's rain. The top 500 feet were decent spring conditions, but the remaining 1,500 was hardpack, with occasional golf balls, death cookies and black ice patches for added interest. Off-trail skiing was only for masochists on this side of the mountain, so we never went to the Boomerang Chair or into well-shaded Cedar Bowl. Before lunch we did one run down the groomed center of Currie Bowl, where the upper 1,000 vertical was packed powder before the hardpack/icy runout to the base.
After lunch I skied Siberia Bowl, which was in the best shape of any top-to-bottom groomer due to lack of traffic. We then met Bernie (one of Craig's new reporters) and some friends from Calgary for an afternoon tour. Due to conditions these were all laps of the White Pass chair. This was good skiing as most of it was above the Friday rain line and the steeper bowls were skier packed. The final run down the steep skier's right of Currie Bowl (1-2-3) was excellent.
Ski conditions at Fernie are good on about 1/4 of terrain. We viewed our upcoming 3 days at Island Lake with some skepticism at this point. On the cat ride in, several remarked that Fernie's conditions reminded them of Eastern skiing, often followed by the caveat that this year Eastern skiing is better.
Being forewarned, we ventured onto the hill at 10AM. It was sunny and mostly clear, which means in Canada that all the rained upon areas had frozen overnight. In the morning we stuck to the Bear chair groomed runs. The original Fernie terrain only goes up to 5,500 feet (without Face Lift, which was closed), the level of Friday's rain. The top 500 feet were decent spring conditions, but the remaining 1,500 was hardpack, with occasional golf balls, death cookies and black ice patches for added interest. Off-trail skiing was only for masochists on this side of the mountain, so we never went to the Boomerang Chair or into well-shaded Cedar Bowl. Before lunch we did one run down the groomed center of Currie Bowl, where the upper 1,000 vertical was packed powder before the hardpack/icy runout to the base.
After lunch I skied Siberia Bowl, which was in the best shape of any top-to-bottom groomer due to lack of traffic. We then met Bernie (one of Craig's new reporters) and some friends from Calgary for an afternoon tour. Due to conditions these were all laps of the White Pass chair. This was good skiing as most of it was above the Friday rain line and the steeper bowls were skier packed. The final run down the steep skier's right of Currie Bowl (1-2-3) was excellent.
Ski conditions at Fernie are good on about 1/4 of terrain. We viewed our upcoming 3 days at Island Lake with some skepticism at this point. On the cat ride in, several remarked that Fernie's conditions reminded them of Eastern skiing, often followed by the caveat that this year Eastern skiing is better.