Open, 29º and cloudy. A dusting of new snow. Loose frozen granular skiing. Good, fast, and very skiable. Same old trails, Woodcock, Snow Goose, Turkey, Grouse, Goshawk, and Peregrine. 60% chance of a little more snow this afternoon.

Photo 1/6/2019

I say same old trails, but we are lucky to have 10 km of skiing! There are many factors that play into our skiing right now on such limited snow. Fall trail work to get the ground as clear and clean as possible. Ian working with an excavator last summer to smooth and level trails and drain water. On the new trail, Peregrine, Ian had Cameron Chalmers, from  Ogden and Chalmers Landscaping, come in build the trail and flatten and drain water as he made his way around the 3.3 km loop. Remember we had a very rainy October, 10+ inches.  Cameron and Ian built ditches and diverted water. In November when the snow started coming down Ian and whatever crew he could gather, went around the trails with pine branches and covered the wet spots with branches and then started shoveling snow to get the wet spots to freeze up. And that is how we built the base, which now allows us to ski on very little snow. Oh, and we are against the mountains and have the advantage of elevation, orographic precipitation. And we face northeast which protects us from snow eating southerly winds. So there you have it location, hard work and a little good fortune. And we are grateful.

A barred owl sitting at my friend, Donna’s bird feeder.

This barred owl was hoping to catch a mouse or red squirrel sneaking some bird seed. It was sitting outside Donna’s kitchen window. This photo is with her iPhone through the glass. Sometimes paying attention to our surroundings has huge payoffs.

Open, 28º at 7:30am. Cloudy skies. The expected temperature today is 34º, with a chance of wintery mix.

The skiing looked good again today.

But, the weather system is coming up farther north. If the freezing rain is happening the skiing will glaze over. If the snowflakes move in the skiing will slow down. You can call for what is happening at the moment, but it really is going to be changing.

Ian has re-groomed the  Woodcock, Snow Goose, Turkey, Grouse, Goshawk and Peregrine. Dick and Ian shoveled on the outer Snow Goose loop on Thursday. They did such a great job! The skiing out there is really nice!

From Ian’s Instagram page taken this morning, 1/5/2019.

Friday morning’s skiing Ian described as “As good as it gets.” And today the tracks look the same. The 2 inches of snow from Thursday morning are going a long way.

Photo taken 1/4/2019. Skiing is the same today, minus the blue sky.

Open, 26º at 6:30am, and a starry, starry night/early morning. Weather forecast for today, partly cloudy and 37º. You will need maxiglide on waxless skis.

Ian groomed last night, he finished about 8:30pm. His work and the 2.5 inches of new snow from yesterday gives us really great skiing. Look at those tracks, that smooth surface.

The tracks and grooming on 1/3/19 at 8pm. Hope he had good music.

He regroomed all the open trails. Woodcock, Snow Goose, Turkey, Grouse, and Peregrine. The tracks look super, super great. All the shoveling to give us the great base pays off everyday and even more when it snows! Thank you Ian for all your work on the trails and for organizing fun shoveling days. If you ever want to be on the shoveling/stick crew let Ian know. He’ll invite you.

To get the other trails, Chickadee, Upper and Middle Blue Jay open we still need the big snow. And the predictions from the weather people are for a good snow next Monday night, Tuesday. The are predicting (an educated guess) 5 to 8 inches. Cross your fingers, do your snow dance.

We have been open officially for all skiers 29 days. Add another 10 to that for just season pass holders. So not counting today, 39 days of skiing. Really good effort again to the shovelers! And to the design of the new trail. The Peregrine was built with low snow use in mind. As smooth as possible. And it works great!

Nice double pole action on wonderful tracks!

Open, 25º at 7am and 2.1 inches of new snow. Powder over loose granular/packed powder. Snowing off and on today and cloudy. An expected high around 32º. That means you will need the maxiglide.

We have a great base (no bare spots! Thank you shovelers!!), add to that 2 inches of snow and the skiing is really good. There are tracks in most places on Woodcock, Snow Goose. The same old trails are open Woodcock, Snow Goose, Turkey, Grouse, Goshawk and Peregrine. We need a real snow storm to get the Middle and Upper Blue Jay and Chickadee open (still a lot of bare spots up there). Maybe next week????? That guess is based on a weather prediction guess, their best guess as of right now.

Start of the boys race, 1/2/19.

The ski race yesterday was great. I saw a few falls, a couple crashes, a tangle up here and there. There were about 90 high school age kids skiing their fastest on a fast, technical race course. The only injury was a fall after the race, with a banged up face and a little bloody nose. And he had a broken pole. He said, and “I don’t care about my face, I broke my new pole, and it is expensive, my mom is going to mad.” (He and his mom had split the cost.)  Save the day awards go to Chuck, first aid. And to Matt, bus driver/carbon repair extraordinaire, he can fix the pole. And for the innocents out there who haven’t purchased racing equipment, new fancy poles cost anywhere from $200 to $450. So yeah, wow.

Start of the girls race, 1/2/19.

There are longer Varsity races and shorter Junior Varsity races. I know of a few girls that skied their first Varsity races yesterday. They had great races, they felt strong on the course and on the uphills. And they appreciated all the skiing and training they’ve been doing for the last 6 weeks. Home court advantage helped yesterday.