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Saturday: <BR> <BR>Myself and two of my fellow instructors made it into one of the first gondola's in the morning. Up at the top, there was about 4 inches of very light snow on top of the packed powder. Unfortunately, this surface snow was so light, it was pretty much just useful for leaving a smoke screen. The packed powder underneath was good though. We made our way to riverbed (off chinclip) which was in very good shape, there were a couple of open holes to the running water, one of which was just on the other side of a rise so it was hard to see ahead of time, but other than that, it definitely looked better than most of the other times I've hit it. It's pretty low on my list of places to go, so usually by the time I get there everybody else has already been there and the conditions suck. We went left at the rope, and on the little traverse from there I managed to catch a branch which scratched my goggles then knocked them down towards my mouth and gave me a little scratch above my eyebrow (which yielded some good laughs when talking to students). <BR> <BR>For a second run, we hit lower Tomba's (?) - the little chute that cuts the corner at the top of Perry Merril, but not the one with the waterfall. Then the right riverbed followed by woods between switchback and chinclip. As I exited those woods, I came onto the trail right next to a patrol. I was in uniform, so I could have gotten in trouble for riding off trail, but all I got was a "How's it going?". Phew. <BR> <BR>So, morning woods in the Gondi area were very good. <BR> <BR>Taught from 10:00-11:30. <BR> <BR>Around noon, tried Tres Amigos which was very skied off. Could have been I just picked the wrong place to go, or maybe by that time everyplace was looking skied off. Liftline definitely looked nasty - a few bumps and a lot of ice, at least in the steep parts. <BR> <BR>Taught from 1:00-2:30. <BR> <BR>Did a Little Spruce run and found more good packed powder and some fun drifts on the extreme edges of the trail. <BR> <BR>Bruce Trail at 3:30 - not a lot of surface snow, but still an amazingly fun ride. I think today was my quickest Bruce run ever. We met at the bottom of the quad at 3:30 or so and were at the Horn by 4:15. The firm snow on the cross country trails meant an easy skate out, and we flew down the Bruce itself. There were a few small holes in the usual spots of the Bruce, but not bad. <BR> <BR>All in all, a good day. <BR> <BR>Sunday: <BR> <BR>The snow report said 4-6" of new snow. The report was dead on, or even a little on the low side. The snow this morning was just a tad heavier (in water content) than what was around Saturday morning, so you could actually float in it instead of sinking through. I only had time for three runs before I had to work, and since I had some full day kids, I was teaching from 9:30-3:30. But those first three runs were great. Today, we hit the quad. <BR> <BR>First up was Tres Amigos which was in much better shape than Saturday afternoon, it's hard to believe it was the same place even. I'm not up on all the little sub-names in that area, but we started between centerline and hayride, then moved over to Tres Amigos proper. Beautiful stuff, found many untracked lines, even down on the small rock-drops towards the bottom. <BR> <BR>Second run was upper upper national (nothing too great) to partridge. Even more light fluffy snow and untracked lines. We kept threading our way through trees pretty much all the way to the quad again. <BR> <BR>Third and final run was going to be Starr woods, but as we got up within sight of the Octagon, we saw patrol dropping the rope on the top of Goat. Since neither myself nor my riding partner had ridden goat from the top yet this year, we decided we'd have to do it. Of course, a few people had already been there while it was closed (or in its reserved state if that makes you feel better), but we were the first to ride it legally today. Definitely one of my best Goat runs. The bumps seemed uncharacteristically small, and even the rider's right side of the trail was ridable. Once we got to the entrance to Goat woods, we went that way. It had been hit harder than the other woods we rode that morning, but was still pretty good. <BR> <BR>Yep, it's still winter out there.