ungroomed

Finally (finally!) I got off the groomers.  Saturday rolled around, the week only having brought trace amounts of new snow, with temperatures in the valley were near 40 and in the low 30s up the canyon.  We headed straight to the Supreme lift and did a couple of warm-up runs where H jumped in and out of the trees to test the snowpack, delightedly announcing that it was much softer than its been for ages.  It was starting to get busy - and, due to the holiday weekend, ended up being as busy as it has been all year - and we hopped in the singles line, where I told H to figure out a good, not too crazy ungroomed trail for us to do next: my back felt pretty good and I wanted to give it a try.

When I got off the lift, H was already heading up to the traverse to Catherine's Area.  On and on we went, puffing and sweating, until we got to a wide clearing.  Although there wasn't any untracked snow, this part of the mountain just doesn't get many skiers - the hike up and over weeds most of them out - and we had it pretty much to ourselves.  It was great - and if we would get some new snow, it woud be spectacular. 

Catherine's Area is quite different from Supreme Bowl: the former is not very steep with rolling glade punctuated by conifers, while the latter consists of steep, dramatic chutes.  I'd not gotten all the way over to Catherine's last season and I really liked it: the snow was deep and soft and we just meandered along, picking out where we wanted to go. 

My back was holding up pretty well but after three times through Catherine's, the traverses were starting to wear on me.  We'd been skiing for about four hours at this point so we decided to head back across the mountain to take a couple of runs off the Wildcat chair, figuring that there'd be plenty of snow without having to traverse.  By the time we got back to where the Collins lift unloads, the visibility was terrible.  A cloud had settled right onto the mountain and you could scarcely see ten feet in front of you.  That killed it for us: I'll ski in real cold or snow or even rain, but not being able see is too disconcerting.  We picked our way back down to the main lodge and called it a day, happy at the runs we'd made and happy that my back seems to be holding up at long last.

The ice crystals on the trees were growing sideway - supercool