Day 119 | creme brulee

Hopped on the Blackcomb gondola half past eleven in the morning and headed up for another day of Spring riding with Aimee.  I wasn't sure what we were going to ride today as it was cloudy, a bit on the colder side, and Aimee refused to ride Solar Coaster.  So we immediately headed towards 7th Heaven.

It's been a few days since that last nice dump of snow so we planned on staying on the groomers.  The snow was nice above the tree line and there were spots where you could lay some fresh tracks down.  Below the tree line, the snow was a bit crusty.  Not enough to keep you off the snow, but just enough to not make it perfect.  I described it as "creme brulee".  Aimee described it as "lemon meringue pie".  That was probably a better description since the snow was choppy like the top of a pie.

Sand Box had built a 85-100 foot kicker out in the middle of 7th Heaven for an upcoming photo shoot.  Of course, we wandered over to that to check it out.  Man it's huge.  It's hard to get an accurate feel of it from the picture, but trust me, it's big.  We took about three to four runs down hitting the nice snow between the cat tracks right off the chair and then stuck to Cloud 9 or Panorama for the remaining run to the chair.  We were about to call last run out when we noticed some photographers hanging out at the jump.  On the off chance we could catch someone launching off the kicker, we decided to take another run.  This time Aimee's curiosity kicked in and she decided to explore Lakeside Bowl.  We traversed past the avalanche gate where the snow was nice and the traverse was easy.  Once we reached the top of the bowl, we were staring down nothing but fresh sparkling snow!  We laid our tracks down screaming the entire way because of how awesome it was..... especially for May!

Naturally we wanted to hit it again but by the time we got back up the chair, the sun had come out and Patrol closed the course.  Well at least we got to do it once.  We hit the groomer and then decided to take Blue Line down to the Tbars.  Again, nice snow down the side of Blue Line and Aimee started exploring again and traversed towards Secret Shoot.  Naturally I followed but got a little nervous as the further we traversed, the less I saw a line I could take down out of there.  The snow on the traverse was about a foot deep, soft and mostly untouched.  I just kept heading towards my right, praying I came across something I could get down.  Sure enough we came to Secret Shoot and we found some amazing snow out of there and finally we jumped back onto the groomer.  It was sweet!  And such a surprise.  I was so excited that I kept telling Aimee how much I love riding with her because she likes to explore.  And like a dumbass (maybe not) - I just follow!!

I started the day with the statement that today was going to be my last day of riding for the season.  I finished the day with the statement that there was no way in hell today was going to be my last day of riding for the season.  : )