Tuesday, February 18th - Fernie Alpine Resort - 27 inches new snow

The next morning, I got up and tried to check the snow phone. It was still on the "early update" which unfortunately never seemed to give me any of the information I really wanted. I wanted to know things like the amount of new snow, temperature etc., but all I recall was "blah blah blah, the regular report will be available at 8:00 A.M. or something. Although I never had time to get an accurate report and thus had to go out blind, I can tell you now that they had received 68 cm in 48 hours. That's approximately 27 inches of snow! As a bonus, it was going to be a bluebird day with comfortable winter temperatures; how could we go wrong! Well, we didn't go wrong, but as you'll see, other factors came into play that were of themselves, just plain WRONG.

We hadn't been sure how we were going to get to the base area from our condo, but as we were standing around thinking about it, a couple of guys walked by all suited up. They informed us in some sort of Aussie/Kiwi accent that it was "about 400 meters". That sounded good to us, and off we went. Chris, Katie, and Ben were lagging behind at the condo, so we decided that we'd keep in touch by radio and meet up a little later. We'd heard the avalanche bombs going off in the morning, just as we would throughout our trip; it's usually a good sign when the bombs are going off every day.

If you'd like to follow along with the report by trail map, click on the map below to open a high-resolution trail map of Fernie Alpine Resort (555 kB) in a new window.

As we approached the base area, we realized that despite all the magnificence that mother nature had displayed in combining a monster snowfall and a beautiful day, there was a manmade factor that she couldn't control... people. The crowds of powder hungry skiers were enormous. After about 35 minutes of waiting for the Elk Chair, we finally got to ride up. Getting off at the top, we could see that a few people were shuffling up a few yards to get to some fresh snow. We followed part of the way to get an idea of what the fresh snow would be like, and I was amazed. At the top of the Elk Chair, I stuck my pole in the snow and it sunk more than two feet. Even with the temperatures being close to freezing down at the base (~3,500'), with fairly wet snow; it was light and dry powder up here (~4,500'). I couldn't help but think... two feet of fresh, blue skies, awesome temperatures... and we were at Fernie! It almost seemed too good to be true... and it was.

As I got into position to be able to see the slope, the rude awakening arrived. The slope (Lower Bear) was packed wall to wall with people, and just about any spare scrap of powder had been wiped clean. The surface was still generally soft, but there was no chance of first tracks, second tracks, or any sort of tracks. Heading to the far left side of the trail, I was able to find a few swatches of untouched snow tight to the tress, but these pockets just gave the tiniest glimpse of what had once been there.

In an effort to find SOMETHING untracked, I cut into the trees to the left. Although the snow was untracked in here, it was not really all that deep (6-12 inches maybe, due to much snow being caught by the trees). The lines weren't all that great either; some ground clutter was still present and disrupted the continuity of the area. I decided the next thing to try was to continue through the woods and get over to the next trail. Since that trail (Kodiak Upper) was only accessible from the next lift up, it might be untracked (fat chance). Kodiak Upper was all tracked out as well, once again wall to wall. Where had all these people come from? There was absolutely nobody on the trail, but it was WIPED CLEAN. We decided to high tail it down to the next lift (Boomerang Triple Chair) in hopes of getting to fresh snow higher on the mountain. One thing that had stood out while over at Kodiak Upper was the amazing steepness of the trails above. The trails looked like they virtually plunged off the mountain, and although they were really steep, the impression of their slope was somehow enhanced even more because of the setting. There are many steep slopes that don't really look all that steep from below, due to their surroundings, but the feeling I got from these slopes was something I hadn't felt since looking at the terrain under the Summit lift at Whitewater, B.C. I definitely had to get back and ski those slopes at some point during the trip.

We did enjoy grabbing a few snatches of powder left over in the flat spots of Kodiak Lower, but there was still little to be found. In addition, now that we had returned to the main route to the Boomerang Triple Chair, we had rejoined the masses of people who were flooding the slope. I thought it was crazy, that is until we got within sight of the lineup for the Boomerang. The line was HUGE. It didn't seem like there was a practical way to get out from the bottom of this lift, so like everyone else, we hopped in line. It was interesting to hear all the conversations in line, and we had plenty of time. By the time we got onto the chair, 45 minutes of waiting in line had passed. I figured a lot of people would be out today, but had never dreamed of lines this long. The last time I waited 45 minutes in a lift line was a Mad River Glen weekend powder day, and that's a SINGLE chair! One funny note about the line scene was that some guy fell off right at the beginning of the lift, and of course after laughing at him, the mob made it perfectly clear that he was going to the BACK of the line. Poor guy; there went another 45 minutes for him :(. Greg got a couple good pictures of the lineup for posterity, although it's not the kind of line I'll soon forget!

After our extended wait, we finally got on board and got to the top of the Boomerang Chair. To our right stood the Cedar Bowl which was still closed, and to our left were the trails that headed back down to the Elk and Boomerang Chairs, tracked out beyond belief. Straight ahead of us however, we noticed a few people hiking up to the last pitch of the Tower 6 Trail. It looked to be about a 10 minute hike, and anything was better than going back down to wait in those lift lines. The hike got us to the top of the Great Bear Express Quad, which was not running. As it turns out, not only were there a ton of people who had turned out for the big powder day, the resort was still having issues with some of its lifts, a holdover from the previous day's power troubles. Supposedly, neither the Great Bear, nor the White Pass Quad were running, and the Great Bear especially, is one of their high-speed workhorses. These lifts being out of commission compounded the crowding problem extremely. As we sat at the top of the Great Bear after our short hike, we took the chance to enjoy the views, and reflected on the fact that many of us would rather hike the entire mountain for good snow than wait in huge lift lines for tracked up slopes. With Cedar Bowl still closed, it looked like our best option was to traverse across on the "Face to Lizard" trail and look for untracked lines in the Lizard Bowl.

Fortunately, for the first time of the day, we had found terrain with SOME untracked lines remaining. Weston dropped lower in the bowl to film (in the area of the Cascade Trail), and the rest of us dropped in one by one for the camera. So, now we'd found some untracked snow, but once I dropped in, I realized it was nothing like that tempting 2 feet of light fluff I'd probed at the top of the Elk Chair. The snow in the Lizard Bowl had apparently been hit by wind, and was well packed. I barely sunk in a couple of inches. I thought at first that it might be my fat skis, but James and Greg experienced the same thing. It looked as though we just weren't going to get what we wanted today. As we dropped lower in the bowl, the snow became lighter as it was more sheltered from the wind, but it also became more tracked due to people that could traverse to these points without a hike. Still, I would say that these turns in the lower area were my favorite of the day thus far.

We'd recently heard, and now could see, that the Great Bear Express Quad was running. We coordinated with Chris, Katie and Ben by radio, and arranged to meet there. Things were now looking up a bit, but soon enough the lift shut down again and we got the word that it would be quite a while before they could get it open. I guess at least we weren't the folks who had already loaded and had to sit on it for the next half hour, a bit of a silver lining.

Not wanting to head back anywhere near the Elk and Boomerang Chairs, we decided to make our way to another one of the upper lifts, the White Pass Quad, which was reportedly open. This first meant taking the Timber Bowl Express Quad, which was a treat for once, with a line somewhat less than 30 minutes long. Connecting from the top of the Timber Bowl Quad to the White Pass Quad was actually another highlight for me. Although we had started by simply taking one of the shortest routes (along the 100% Trail), Ben, using some of his knowledge from the past couple of days, alerted us to the trees to the skier's right of "Puff". Although tracked, I soon found myself in some nice steep terrain with soft snow, trees, and a great assortment of terrain features. The fat skis were very happy on this stuff, and catching air off the features and landing fluidly in the soft snow of the fall line fell together perfectly. I couldn't thank Ben enough for alerting us to this great little stash. Although the Puff trail itself seemed fine enough, the terrain in these trees was fantastic, with even softer snow.

Next it was up the White Pass Quad, and the lift line wait was much better, maybe 15 minutes or so. The scenery around and below the White Pass Quad is really cool. Off to the left you can see the upper reaches of the Timber Bowl, and below is some really neat open terrain in the area of "Quite Right". This area was still closed off due to avalanche hazard, but you could see the lines of poachers who'd dared to test the waters. A couple that we rode up with said that patrol had been waiting at the bottom and immediately clipping tickets of the poachers. Losing your ticket that early was a pretty big sacrifice for a few turns, even as yummy as they looked from our point on the lift. Above and to the lookers right of Quite Right, one could see where much of the avalanche hazard probably originated. Steep craggy chutes, called the Knot Chutes looked like they would be amazing to ski, although I'm sure at this point they were amazingly dangerous. I made a mental note to try and get back there when they opened them up.

Once at the top of the White Pass Quad, we could see into Currie Bowl. We could see where some of the many explosives we'd heard had gone off, in some cases starting some slides. Currie was still closed, so our option was to head left off the lift to the terrain below Timber Bowl. The upper reaches of Timber Bowl were still roped off, but the sheer cliffs and pristine snow made a nice backdrop for some still photos.

The skiing at Fernie is interesting in that you really don't ski off the peaks of the mountains. The peaks along this part of the Lizard Range aren't all that big (Mammoth Head; 6,807', Elephant Head; 6,709, Polar Peak; 7,000', and Grizzly Peak; 6,900') but their top 1,000' or so of vertical is all sheer cliffs that make for an amazingly dramatic setting. The skiing takes place below all these cliffs in the open bowls and trees. I'm sure people have skied from the summits of these mountains at some point, but from this side they appeared to be very few skiable lines, mostly just sheer cliff drops of several hundred feet that are probably not practical to ski more than once in your life.

Since our options were somewhat limited, we traversed across and up the Falling Star trail to a region near the Heartland trail. Even though we shuffled up a bit to get on a knob, we didn't get much untracked snow; the traffic had been so heavy. We shot a little video in the trees here, but it was nothing too special. For me, the best part of the area was after the first couple hundred vertical feet, I spied a zone where the pitch really steepened. Since it wasn't visible from above, I surmised it might be less tracked. James and I headed this direction and definitely found our best snow of the run. The pitch steepened to over 30 degrees for a couple hundred vertical, and there was excellent snow. This was definitely another highlight of the day for me, even if it was only for a couple hundred vertical feet.

We rode the White Pass Quad again, and this time worked our way to some of the terrain on the skier's left of the lift. People were certainly thinking lunch by this point, and this direction worked out well to get us to the base. Somehow, Greg, James, and I managed to find our way into some thick woods, which eventually opened up into some small snowfields, hidden from the main trails and totally untracked. We spent some time in there and did a little shooting while the others had long since reached the lodge for lunch. We let them know that we were fine, and eventually met up with them at the lodge.

After lunch, Katie had to head off on her way to Seattle, but we convinced Ben to stay for a few days and head back with Greg. Weston headed in to rest his sore knee, and the rest of us planned to head up the Timberline Express Quad again. We hung around at the top of the lift waiting for Ben, and James and Greg amused us by hiking up some terrain and jumping down into the powder. Greg had an absolutely great header, it seemed to take him an eternity to dig himself out. We had wanted to hit the White Pass Quad, but it was closed so we ended up just skiing a bit off the Timber Bowl.

I don't recall anything too memorable in the afternoon, except one special event that was certainly (for me) a highlight of the entire vacation. For a while, we'd been eyeing this large area of powder off a traverse below the Timber Bowl Quad. It was a perfect setup for jumping off the cat track and into the deep powder below. We'd checked it out briefly before, and it looked like a great spot, without much danger of hitting anything. I decided that a fun setup would be for James and I to jump simultaneously, and I'd try to film him with the head cam. It had the potential for a really unique shot if we could pull it off. We picked our spot, a clearing in the trees where we had about 60 or so feet of distance before the forest closed in. I couldn't quite see the slope angle, so I had to gauge by the tops of trees and my memory from scouting earlier that day. I decided that James would lead, picking the spot, and I would jump next to him as close as possible to get the shot, but not such that one of us would land on the other. Our timing was perfect, and we synchronously took off from the launch. It was beautiful. But, as soon as I took off, I knew that my trajectory was going to lead to trouble. In my efforts to keep a safe distance from James, my flight path was going to take me too far off to the left of the hole in the trees. I had no time to try and focus on James with the camera, I was in BIG trouble. I had underestimated the slope and was on a collision course with two large conifers. It was a long enough flight that I had plenty of time to think about the consequences. Fortunately, my feet were out in front of me, but I can distinctly recall thinking "Oh yeah, I'm going to break something, this is REALLY going to suck." The feeling, once in the air, of being essentially "along for the ride" was certainly disconcerting. I wanted to somehow slow myself down and land well before the trees, but gravity would have none of that. My best hope was that I would touch down in the powder and I'd be slowed before the collision. It was almost like reading a book and hoping that the ending would turn out OK, but having no control over the ultimate outcome. Fortunately, after flying about 40 feet, I began to touch down in the powder and rapidly decelerated, ending up with the bottom of my skis resting against one of the trees. I quickly thanked my lucky stars, and let James, who had hit the hole exactly, know that I was OK. I then realized that the head cam had been running the whole time, and although I would never have intentionally set up such a shot, I really hoped the camera caught the essence of what I'd experienced. I think the footage must be somewhat representative, because E still closes here eyes and turns her head when she watches it.

After James and I were reassembled, Greg jumped in, getting some serious distance. Finally, we met up with Ben, and skied out the woods below. Nobody had been in there, since they were probably worried about the deadfall and coverage, but we had no choice. It actually turned out OK, although you had to be on your toes because some logs were still above the snowpack. After that run, we were about ready to call it a day and headed to the condo.

Since we still hadn't bought any food for the condo, we headed into town again, both to stock up and to hit another restaurant. This time we went to a pub style place, and then stopped in at the associated bar afterwards. The bar was fun because it was no smoking (I guess this is the case all over B.C.) and they had Foosball. Once we got home, it was time for Xbox! Greg had brought his unit with 4 controllers, and we were able to play Halo with four people simultaneously. That was WAY too fun; it doesn't get much better than a day full of skiing topped off by an evening of blowing up your friends.

If you'd like to get a local's perspective on the ski day, check out Bernie's report for February 18th, 2003 from the unofficial Fernie Page.