Here’s why I didn’t ski Thursday.
Fernie thought the weather was hazardous too. I found out later that only the Elk chair operated Thursday.
I was on the computer much of the morning. In the afternoon I drove out to the Frank Slide Interpretive Center https://frankslide.ca/ in Crowsnest Pass.
Friday morning it had warmed up to 0F by the time I headed out at 10AM. As I was going to be riding lifts, I triple layered as on Wednesday in the cat at -10F. At least it was sunny more often than not Friday. Here’s the view of the mountain from town.
Lizard and Cedar Bowls are viewed straight on at right. Timber and Currie Bowls are viewed at an angle at left.
From top of the Elk chair is a closer view of Lizard Bowl.
The local kids’ group in red vests was just departing.
After one groomer on Bear I realized I had a wind chill issue and needed the balaclava. The next run I traversed into Lizard Bowl, found that less tracked snow had stiffened during the Arctic blast and skied mostly groomed Cascade. When I next tried the skier packed moguls on SunUp, the added exertion started to fog my goggles. I knew from past experience that in these temperatures the fog could freeze so I went into a warming hut, applied another round of defog spray and from then on left my nose outside the balaclava to prevent a recurrence.
It was now time to take a couple of runs in Cedar Bowl.
The background view is up Lizard Creek toward Island Lake.
My first run in there was mostly on groomed Trillium, and the second was a steep skier packed line off Cedar Ridge. In both cases I rode the Haul Back T-bar and Boomerang chair. I then skied under the Boomerang lift in mostly smooth chalk though it was fairly firm.
I now took a short soup break to warm up. After skiing Fernie’s Old Side before lunch, I rode the beginner Deer lift to head for Timber and the New Side. On the way I heard an announcer describing a park event. These were kids maybe middle school age. As I arrived a 13 year old did a quite complex aerial with inversions and twists. I took this pic of the next contestant probably initiating a backflip.
I moved on as there was no way I was going to have my mitten off for more than a minute or so.
It was supposed to warm up more in the afternoon, but it didn’t feel that way to me. It was somewhat cloudier but the main issue was wind riding the long Timber chair.
A bit below the top of Timber is this view of the White Pass chair where I’m going next.
Shakey’s Acres under the top of White Pass had smooth windbuff with some blown in snow, the best I skied all day. I had seen a few locals traversing skier’s left from there. I remembered from the Bill Handley tour in 2018 that led to the Anaconda Glades so I gave that a try. It was steep and mostly smooth but varied between soft and windpacked. I continued to Diamondback, which had developed small moguls since Monday’s dump. Liz had several powder runs on Diamondback in 2018 while Tseeb and I were trying to keep up with Bill.
I rode Timber one more time and took a White Pass lap on Shakey’s Acres and Highline. On the final run I had this view of Polar Peak from the top of White Pass.
To no surprise Polar Peak did not run today. I have not seen it listed open this season yet when checking for my bimonthly season progress reports.
My last run on Down Right was mostly smooth and fairly soft chalk. I skied 20,100 vertical Friday.
Fernie thought the weather was hazardous too. I found out later that only the Elk chair operated Thursday.
I was on the computer much of the morning. In the afternoon I drove out to the Frank Slide Interpretive Center https://frankslide.ca/ in Crowsnest Pass.
Friday morning it had warmed up to 0F by the time I headed out at 10AM. As I was going to be riding lifts, I triple layered as on Wednesday in the cat at -10F. At least it was sunny more often than not Friday. Here’s the view of the mountain from town.
Lizard and Cedar Bowls are viewed straight on at right. Timber and Currie Bowls are viewed at an angle at left.
From top of the Elk chair is a closer view of Lizard Bowl.
The local kids’ group in red vests was just departing.
After one groomer on Bear I realized I had a wind chill issue and needed the balaclava. The next run I traversed into Lizard Bowl, found that less tracked snow had stiffened during the Arctic blast and skied mostly groomed Cascade. When I next tried the skier packed moguls on SunUp, the added exertion started to fog my goggles. I knew from past experience that in these temperatures the fog could freeze so I went into a warming hut, applied another round of defog spray and from then on left my nose outside the balaclava to prevent a recurrence.
It was now time to take a couple of runs in Cedar Bowl.
The background view is up Lizard Creek toward Island Lake.
My first run in there was mostly on groomed Trillium, and the second was a steep skier packed line off Cedar Ridge. In both cases I rode the Haul Back T-bar and Boomerang chair. I then skied under the Boomerang lift in mostly smooth chalk though it was fairly firm.
I now took a short soup break to warm up. After skiing Fernie’s Old Side before lunch, I rode the beginner Deer lift to head for Timber and the New Side. On the way I heard an announcer describing a park event. These were kids maybe middle school age. As I arrived a 13 year old did a quite complex aerial with inversions and twists. I took this pic of the next contestant probably initiating a backflip.
I moved on as there was no way I was going to have my mitten off for more than a minute or so.
It was supposed to warm up more in the afternoon, but it didn’t feel that way to me. It was somewhat cloudier but the main issue was wind riding the long Timber chair.
A bit below the top of Timber is this view of the White Pass chair where I’m going next.
Shakey’s Acres under the top of White Pass had smooth windbuff with some blown in snow, the best I skied all day. I had seen a few locals traversing skier’s left from there. I remembered from the Bill Handley tour in 2018 that led to the Anaconda Glades so I gave that a try. It was steep and mostly smooth but varied between soft and windpacked. I continued to Diamondback, which had developed small moguls since Monday’s dump. Liz had several powder runs on Diamondback in 2018 while Tseeb and I were trying to keep up with Bill.
I rode Timber one more time and took a White Pass lap on Shakey’s Acres and Highline. On the final run I had this view of Polar Peak from the top of White Pass.
To no surprise Polar Peak did not run today. I have not seen it listed open this season yet when checking for my bimonthly season progress reports.
My last run on Down Right was mostly smooth and fairly soft chalk. I skied 20,100 vertical Friday.