There are no friends on a powder day!

There are no friends on a powder day!

I went to bed at 2:30 AM. My alarm was set for 7:00 AM. 3 inches of light fluffy powder had fallen when I went to bed... But the time I had gotten up another 2 inches had been added. The biggest snow fall this season.. I needed to go skiing!

I got to the K1 Base Lodge around 7:30 AM. The "Box" was already loading. I saw some old ski house mates heading out. The plan was to meet at the Superstar chair around 8 after taking a run thru the pow.

By the time I got my equipment on and got over to the K1 Gondola, it was 7:40. When I got to the peak, I figured that I could cut across the mountain and run down Superstar, meeting the group at the scheduled hour.. Bad Plan... At 7:45, Superstar was a cold version of hell. Snow was still falling very heavy, there was a 20-30 MPH up slope wind, and the resort had groomed a path 3 cat tracks wide down the middle. With the falling and blowing snow, visibility was ZERO. And the traverse between a groomed surface and knee deep snow drifts was not the great ski experience I was planning. (But I would not have missed it for the world!) While I am in the middle of this mess, and I was the only person on Superstar at this point, I see the people I was supposed to meet overhead on the Superstar chair... there are no friends on a powder day!

I took the chair and went off the back side towards Bear. Bear Trap was sweet, with a nice 6 inch covering of fluff on skiers right. On lower Bear Claw, this guy rockets by me on a board. I was already far over to the right, he was between me and the woods. I thought I recognized him, so I followed him down to the OL chair... sure enough, it was my friend Larry who did car parking duty for me last weekend.

We got on the OL chair for a loop before taking the Skye Peak chair to head down to Needles Eye. Skye Burst was getting pretty cut up. Cruise Control on far skiers right was clear. Needles Eye had some great face shots interspersed with a little slip and slide. From the Needles Eye chair, we went down Bitter Sweet (which was totally blown away by the wind) and took Low Road back to the Superstar lift. Low Road had only been track by 1 other skier... nice pow on a thin base. From the Superstar Chair we then went down Upper and Middle Ovation. The wind had blown a ton of snow onto skiers left on Upper Ovation, which was really nice. Middle Ovation was a little boney, with powder bumps interspersed with skid plates. After all, the sign at the top did say "Thin Cover". The visibility had improved considerably on Lower Superstar. Skiers right was very deep, although the very end featured a interesting slide around the "Slow" sign at the bottom. Hard to go slow on powder shot legs when the surface is rock hard.

One more boost on the Superstar chair and I was done... It was 9:45, I had skied for 2 hours on 4 1/2 hours sleep... not a bad ratio. Now if we could get another 6 inches of powder tonight!