Happenings at Jello's House: Ski Day 34: The powder never gets boring

Tuesday 29 March 2011

Ski Day 34: The powder never gets boring

Vert: 9,560 m; YTD cum vert: 284,000 m (not a typo)
Runs: 19; YTD cum runs: 544

Just like yesterday, it started with fresh powder and some sunshine, then clouded up in the PM and started snowing. However, there wasn't as much powder (only 5-15 cm) and it wasn't as blizzarding in the PM.

This morning also featured a bit of wind that was transporting the snow. So in addition to the fresh, you also got some really nice blow in. Thus the morning started with acres of untracked powder...

Powder field at the top of Goat's Head Soup

...that had a huge degree of awesomeness and was being enjoyed by a few folks.

From the middle of Upper Gold Scapegoat to the glades under Cleavage

The powder from yesterday and today continued to bury the crusty bits from last week, but the one space that disappointed me was the Farside and Wildside chutes. While the rest of the hill has powder on powder, there's a lot of nasty rutted hardpack hiding under the powder on those two runs. However, I did have two incredible first track runs in knee deep drifts on the sides of Upper Gold Scapegoat.

I headed up Divide as usual after lunch but quickly got fogged out. There was just a scad of untracked powder up there, but skiing it was pretty ugly due to the viz. So continuing my quest to get to places I don't normally get, I spent most of the afternoon on Standish and Wawa. On Standish, I got a handful of runs in the Virgins (hey, I don't name the runs) and the Bunkers.

Upper Standish

On the left is the entrance to the Virgins

Looking down the Virgins run

I found huge expanses of untracked powder in the Paris Basin off Wawa; I suspect the reason it was untracked is that you had to access it from the Paris Traverse, which is a bit of an uphill trudge from the top of Wawa. Both times I came out the Birdcage, which provides this unique perspective on the Angel Chair and the village.