April 12: Winter? Spring? Powder?

Perhaps it's the Heartworm/bleed/break virus, or the fact that internet in Canmore has been spotty this weekend, or some other goofy technical reason, but PowderWatch.com is not accessible to me for, like, the 4th time this season, so you get me here instead of there (and here isn't working very well, either).

Other commitments have kept me from skiing this week. I went tubing with my daughter Friday, and that was a riot, but the conditions at Norquay were very, very wet and spring-like. So when I got to Sunshine today, I had kind of low expectations for winter conditions, figuring that Sunshine was like Norquay.

I was wrong.

I worked in the parking lot this morning, and so only got up to the mountain at noon. And it was winter. The hill was only reporting ~2 cm overnight, but I found 5-10 cm of fluffy powder everywhere I went. In addition, it was sort of sunny and beautiful all day -- perfect for snow quality retention.

Frome the village; 11:45

I took a tour out today, and was able to take my guests in untracked powder with ease. We had a riot covering the mountain, and seeing stuff like this:

The Dive from Goat's Eye. 3:15 PM

It was a real mix today of powder on fluff, powder on crust, groomed crusties, powder on crusties, and everything in-betweem, showing that it got sunny and warm earlier this week.

After my tour, I got into the South Sides. Awesome. The upper Wildside entrance is a combination of powder and un-crusted moguls, but the lower section way over to the left near the boundary fence...

Looking down at the Tobacco Road entrance

My tracks, and a very few others

...was fantastic untracked 10+ cm on a supportive crust, which made for really fun riding.

I had low expectations for the day, when in fact it ws just a fantastic day of winter skiing.