Day 28 | Christmas Fresh Tracks

SNOW REPORT:  17 inches the last 12 hours ..... 28 inches the last 24 hours .... 45 inches in the last 48 hours.  Base:  8.4 feet!!

I was on the schedule to work Christmas Day but was called off Christmas Eve during lunch.  At first I was quite upset I wouldn't be working on Christmas.  My friend Pippa text'd me and said she was also called off and wanted to do Fresh Tracks.  I was waking up at 5am anyhow to open gifts on the video cam with my family back home so I thought having breakfast at the Roundhouse afterwards was a great idea.

At 7am I was in the gondola queue and I was well into my second plate of breakfast an hour later.  It was windy and with 44 cm of snow falling overnight, we didn't think AC would give the go ahead too early.  When the bell rang, we dropped into the powder off Whiskey Jack and ... OH MY GOD!!!  44 centimeters is a lot of snow!  It was a bit heavy with the freezing level at 1300m but it was insanely fun.  If you strayed too far off the groomed run, you would easily get stuck and spend the next 15 minutes trying to stand back up.

Before we got down to the Emerald Chair, the snow got very wet and very sticky.  We took the next run down Green Acres because it was a bit steeper.  We needed a steeper run to keep the boards moving through the deep snow.  After that run, we decided to try Blackcomb because it's steeper than Whistler.

First run down Blackcomb was the black diamond: Catskinner.  It was pretty tracked out but the snow was soft and working on the bumps helped us with our level 3 training.  After that we hit my new favorite tree run:  Bark Sandwich.  We hooked up with Rosie after a few more runs and when Jersey Cream opened, we rode down the face a few times.

I could go on and on about the many many amazing runs we took.  I could go on and on about the amazing amount of snow.  I won't bore you with the details.  Let's just say it was a Christmas miracle that I didn't have to work today!  : )