Maybe it was the marginal conditions over the past few weeks that convinced people the season was pretty much over, or maybe it was just the shock of losing an hour of sleep with the arrival of Daylight Savings Time. Whatever the reason, only five of us made it up to Gai Luron on Sunday (March 11th) for what turned out to be a surprisingly terrific day of skiing.
The signs were actually quite good: good dump of snow on Thursday/Friday, and steady temperatures below freezing, or close to it, between then and Sunday morning. Combine that with Gai Luron’s legendary grooming prowess and you just might have the makings of a good day. Well it turned out pretty great, temperatures held steady just below freezing right through the morning, and the Gai Luron technicians laid out the prettiest groomed carpet of trails you could possibly imagine.
Deciding on wax was the challenge of the day: Gai Luron management was calling for Blue Extra, I went for Violet Special however, and Tom went for Red! Tom, Dennis, son Chris and I went off on loop L, with the intention of adding backcountry loops B and C. Alfreda headed off on the intermediate loops G and A.
With the new snow, Gai Luron’s genius at grooming and the steady temperature, at or just below freezing, the trails were beautiful. Grip was a function of the wax we had chosen back in the chalet: some of us slipped and slided, some of us had great grip, and then others had too much, even on the icy groomed tracks. Things got interesting when we headed off unto the ungroomed loops B and C. The virgin, untracked powder on those trails presented a completely different set of challenges: the guys who were slipping on the groomed trails had perfect grip on the powder, Tom and I however started clumping up, Tom with the Red wax, more so than me. We both had to stop a couple of times, take off our skis and scrape the built up snow off the bottoms. Actually, Tom, the contortionist, figured out how to do this without removing his skis. After that it was great though, and it was beautiful anyway (so who cares about the hassles), and once we got back unto the groomed trails it was smooth sailing again.
Back at the chalet, after 13k of strenuous skiing, I called it a day. Tom, Chris and Dennis headed off again to do G, I headed into the chalet for some well-deserved lunch. Leaving the chalet, on my way to my car, I bumped into Alfreda who had just finished her outing. Alfreda reported a really great morning as well, would have been nice to have had more BTers to ski with though!
The season is definitely not over, especially with the snow coming today and tomorrow. We could be skiing for a while yet!