Friday 25 December 2009

Ski Day 2: A Bluebird Christmas Day

Day 2: Vert 10,110 m YTD Cum Vert: 20,030
Runs: 19 YTD Cum Runs: 36

At 9 AM in the parking lot at -18°, it was tough to believe the forecast high of -5°. But it was blue sky and sunny, and stranger things have happened. Well, thanks to an inversion, it was -15° at Goat's Eye Base and -7° at the top on our first run. Huh.

This time of the year, it's still almost dark on Goat's Eye until the sun rises over The Eagles around 10:00 AM. But that still means that the views to the northwest are pretty spectacular.



There were really few fresh tracks to find today, and the snow on Goat's Eye seemed harder than the rest of the mountain for some reason. Still, we had fun cruising the groomers (especially Rolling Thunder) till moving up into the sunshine on the rest of the mountain at 11 AM.



As you can see, there was no one at Sunshine today. But Santas were everywhere. I saw at least 4.




The afternoon temp hovered around -4° at the base of Divide, making for a great day. We had fun in on the OS Pitch (a run I never knew had a name) and of course in the Bye Bye Bowl.

I'm betting tomorrow will be a zoo.

2 comments:

Stephens said...

The coldest I have ever skied was -8. How did you stay warm? I think I had hand warmers in all my pockets and it was still pretty cold.

Derek & Karen said...

Well, for starters, my temps are reported in Celcius, meaning it was a balmy 29 F or so over Christmas. But I have skied down to -29 C, which is -20 F (which was no fun). Generally I don't ski much below -25 C (-13 F). Staying warm is all about the quality of your face mask!