Ski day 38; A blue sky show

Vert: 8,810 m;   YTD cum vert: 318,025 m
Runs: 14;   YTD cum runs: 598


It snowed all day yesterday, finally giving up at about 8 PM and leaving us in Canmore with about 25-30 cm. It dawned clear blue sky and cold, with AM temps up at Sunshine of -17° at 7 AM according to the webcams. Based on what we saw, about 10-15 cm fell after the place closed yesterday, giving some very nice fresh AM tracks in boot top stuff.

KC playing in the powder

Old Chute

However, it was a human zoo today. Goat's Eye never has lineups until the afternoon; they started this morning at 9:45 and were 5-10 min all day. The cars were parked 4.2 km past the gate, which is the longest I've recorded this year. This meant that fresh tracks did not last long, and by 11 it was hard to find any. But it didn't matter. Even the tracked stuff was sweet.

Gold Scapegoat beside the Cleavage rocks

Looking down

Every turn, everywhere, was soft and generally pretty deep. It was an excellent ski day. It was the kind of picture perfect day to shoot next year's promo videos and stills for the ski area.

Top of Divide. Note the camera crew hogging the fresh lines.

But for KC and me, one of the "best of the best" parts of the day was we were treated to a show of helicopter avalanche control. A chopper spent an hour or more bombing the heck out of Wild West, the South Side Chutes, the Dive and Silver City. It was a "blast" to watch.

Two go off at once in Silver City

A big one goes off at the top of the Dive...

...resulting in a slide...

...that makes a cloud all the way down. 

They set off a dozen or more avis, one of which (in the Dive on Galaxy) was at least a 3.5. So our vert count was low as we stood on Goat's Eye and watched Mr. Chopper hover in low enough to create a cloud of snow in his rotor wash, then pull back and hover, watching the results of his work, then go do it again. An excellent show indeed.