Sunshine

The group in the sunshine at the top of the Southern Comfort run.

The sun arrived today at long last. This is the first sunny day we have had here since I arrived 3 weeks ago. With fresh snow on the ground and clear skies the Mountain looked spectuluar. Large numbers of other people also thought so and the queue for the base chair lift at 9am was the largest I have seen this season. The run down to MotherLode chair lift was like the Southern Motorway in the morning with everyone heading to work in the city.

Temps: +1 C at the base so unfortunately the snow melted today and it once again is muddy slush. -3C at the top kept the snow in great condition. We skied some great runs in the Paradise Basin. The snow was however variable with scraped off patches and nice soft areas all within 100m. So the name of the game is be ready for anything and everything. With lots of folks out and about zooming down the runs looking up before heading onto a run was a necessity. With the warm temps and an inversion layer skiing back to base at the end of the day was heavy going.

We skied into this historic Red Mountain hut which is still used today. Tiny House living at Red before it got fashionable.

Many bumps were skied today alongside the runs and a few tree runs were attempted. Hopefully I’m getting better at that type of skiing and by the time we reach Hudson Bay Mountain I’ll have it nailed (mostly). I put my name down to get a locker here at Red the list is like 3 yrs long so don’t hold your breath and if you get a locker we can leave our skis here and not drag them back and forth to NZ. This will of course require 2 sets of skis one for Canada and one for NZ.