Day 5: Another powder day.
"But it only snowed an inch or two. How'd you have a powder day?"
By being creative, that's how. With limited lifts and limited open terrain you had to think of the places you could actually get to with the tools you had available, and sometimes that wasn't terribly obvious. But by using your noggin you could come up with some great ideas, ideas that led to our final run of the day which was the run of the year thus far.
But first I had to drive back home to get my ski boots. #-o As Funky Polak wrote yesterday over on NS Mountain Sports, I'm a tool. I was walking through the Wildcat parking lot feeling peculiarly light this morning. That's when it hit me. I've got to do stupid things at least once a season and I'm thankful that this time I got it out of the way early on.
So Bobby Danger and Amy got a couple of runs in before I clicked in for the day at 10 am. It was spitting snow throughout the morning but not adding up to much. We were sniffing out what we could find left untracked from yesterday. It was the skiing equivalent of a Sunday drive. We were all pretty beat from Saturday and it felt good to keep things relaxed for a bit.
After a couple of runs in the more usual places, though, we started striking out further afield in search of untracked. We had yet to get over to Albion Basin yet this season so we took the rope tow over to Sunnyside to have a look around.
Sugarloaf is scheduled to come online this Thursday, and Backside is looking ready to pillage.
Part of our creativity involved heading out the Summer Road to Powerline Hill.
Another part of said creativity was going on a Condo Run and walking back to the ski area afterward. Amy's been thinking about buying the same camera I picked up a few weeks ago, so from this point on in the day she used mine.
However, our coup de gras today was our final run of the day: Eagle's Nest. "But how," you ask, "do you get to Eagle's Nest when the High Traverse isn't open yet?"
:mrgreen:
It wasn't easy. It involved getting across various logs, trees and rock ledges, some of which required lowering down over by using tree branches like a Tarzan vine. Frankly a few of the spots really wigged out Amy. Obviously no one else thought of it, because at 2:45 p.m. we laid the very first tracks in there. It was, in a word, divine.
It was worth every inch of that schlep that it took to get there. It effin' rocked. A group of cross country skiers working out along the rope tow even stopped to watch us ski it. With high fives and fist bumps shared all around we called it a day at 3 p.m.
"But it only snowed an inch or two. How'd you have a powder day?"
By being creative, that's how. With limited lifts and limited open terrain you had to think of the places you could actually get to with the tools you had available, and sometimes that wasn't terribly obvious. But by using your noggin you could come up with some great ideas, ideas that led to our final run of the day which was the run of the year thus far.
But first I had to drive back home to get my ski boots. #-o As Funky Polak wrote yesterday over on NS Mountain Sports, I'm a tool. I was walking through the Wildcat parking lot feeling peculiarly light this morning. That's when it hit me. I've got to do stupid things at least once a season and I'm thankful that this time I got it out of the way early on.
So Bobby Danger and Amy got a couple of runs in before I clicked in for the day at 10 am. It was spitting snow throughout the morning but not adding up to much. We were sniffing out what we could find left untracked from yesterday. It was the skiing equivalent of a Sunday drive. We were all pretty beat from Saturday and it felt good to keep things relaxed for a bit.
After a couple of runs in the more usual places, though, we started striking out further afield in search of untracked. We had yet to get over to Albion Basin yet this season so we took the rope tow over to Sunnyside to have a look around.
Sugarloaf is scheduled to come online this Thursday, and Backside is looking ready to pillage.
Part of our creativity involved heading out the Summer Road to Powerline Hill.
Another part of said creativity was going on a Condo Run and walking back to the ski area afterward. Amy's been thinking about buying the same camera I picked up a few weeks ago, so from this point on in the day she used mine.
However, our coup de gras today was our final run of the day: Eagle's Nest. "But how," you ask, "do you get to Eagle's Nest when the High Traverse isn't open yet?"
:mrgreen:
It wasn't easy. It involved getting across various logs, trees and rock ledges, some of which required lowering down over by using tree branches like a Tarzan vine. Frankly a few of the spots really wigged out Amy. Obviously no one else thought of it, because at 2:45 p.m. we laid the very first tracks in there. It was, in a word, divine.
It was worth every inch of that schlep that it took to get there. It effin' rocked. A group of cross country skiers working out along the rope tow even stopped to watch us ski it. With high fives and fist bumps shared all around we called it a day at 3 p.m.
