Ski Day 2: Blue Sky & Early Season Pow

Vert: 3,605 m   YTD Cum Vert: 5,160 m
Runs: 10   YTD Cum Runs: 13


Today was my first official day actually SnowHosting (at least for part of it). I did the "meet & greet" part of our job at the Borgeau Base area, helping folks at the ticket window. While I was doing that...

Yours truly on the right

...KC (who came in early with me) was bagging first tracks on Divide.

Now there's a dream start to the day

As you can see, it snowed last night. As I mention in last night's post, we had to go to Calgary for the evening last night. KC left early to do some running around, and I went in after SnowHosting. On my way in, the weather was fine to Hwy 22, then from there to Westhills, it was a blizzard with snow covered roads and 50 km/hr. In town, KC got stuck in the Calgary traffic, which was paralyzed by the bad weather. The drive home was MUCH worse, with a blizzard the whole way, crappy viz and a LOT of snow on the roads. The traffic was light, which was fortunate, because plows had not been out and the lanes were missing. There was a semi-truck jackknifed on the highway. There were folks doing 40 km/hr. There were folks driving in the middle of the road. There was one plow. Fun times, and a 50 min drive turned into a 90 min "experience".


Unfortunately, the heavy snow stopped at Lac Des Arcs (I say "unfortunately" from a skiing perspective. It would have been nice if had not snowed at all from a driving perspective). But Sunshine and the rest of the mountains still got some, making yesterday's nice conditions very sweet indeed. Add to that a bluebird sunny day with little wind and moderate winter temps and you have the makings for a very sweet day indeed.

11:30 AM - Compare to the first tracks photo above

Sun, snow and no crowds

From way over on Standish at 1:30.

It was a great day. More snow allowing the opening of more terrain would have made it better. Now, looking at my stats, this is the earliest in the season we have ever skied (first days in the last 5 years: Dec 5, Dec 12, Dec 18, Dec 22 & Dec 30). So taking that into consideration, I'd call this a pretty awesome early season day.