Ski Day 25: Invisible

Vert: 8,995 m;  YTD cum vert: 203,550 m
Runs: 20;   YTD cum runs: 378


I didn't think it was possible to have less viz than we've had the last two days but Big White can impress you sometimes. I give you the view of the terrain park and half pipe from the Bullet chair:

That's not up high; that's at the level of the top of the Village.


It's not to say that there wasn't any fresh stuff; probably another 3-5 cm fell overnight, plus the rather generous breezes have blown stuff around, giving the opportunity to get fresh tracks.

In fact, the morning at the Black Forest did have some rather nice fresh tracks. The trouble was the awful viz cause virtually the entire mountain to come here by mid morning. I give you the 10 minute lift line at 11 AM:

Note there were no lines on the rest of the mountain.


After lunch, KC and I braved Gem. Gem has been closed since Sunday due to high winds, so we had pretty high expectations for conditions over there. Sadly, these expectations were misplaced. The viz was terrible generally today, but we actually got lost in the Sun Bowl in the vast sea of whiteness. Up high, the powder was missing, having been blown off. It might have been good in the trees, but since the trees are all white snow ghosts, we couldn't find them. The viz improved where Kalina's passes under the Gem chair, but not far below that, the snow conditions changed to rather wet pow, and lower still, wet with a crusty top. Still, we did manage to find some deep pow that was not well tracked.

However, just below this, the heavy snow took a toll on the legs, so we only got in two runs over there before we had to come back, and then, beat, we called it a day.