First Day...

Castle Mountain Ski Resort opened for a sneak preview weekend last Friday. Then, I guess the resort is closing for the week and technically opening for good Friday, the sixteenth of December. Don't have a fucking clue why they would open, just to close down for five days. Might have something with do with the shit amount of snow and marginal skiing conditions. This might change. It's snowing like crazy right now, it started last night and is expected to last a couple days. My friend was out there today and said it was pretty good. As you can see in the picture above, there was nothing, it's still green in the fields. If it does continue to snow heavily, I can't see why Castle wouldn't stay open for the week. I will have to look into it.

Even with the shit marginal conditions, it's always good to ride. I like to stick to the groomed runs, and try and work on my legs when it's early season. Get my legs back and wait for the good stuff in mid season. My buddy Saucy, likes to scope out the trees whenever. He don't give a fuck, if there is no snow. We all think he has an unorthodox style, but we like riding with him. Castle is a windy place, it's famous for it's wind sifts. Saucy is always going about it. The wind can bring in more snow then the sky can, on some days. It's a double edged sword though, the wind can melt the snow a bit and it can develop a solid crust. Considering their was gale force winds yesterday at mid mountain, their was some good sifts caught in the trees. These are only good for a couple hours of the day though, they crust over in the morning and again at the end of the day.

High winds, extremely marginal conditions and crazy Saucy aside, it was a good day. Well not that fucking T bar ride, that thing is hell on a string. I thought the T bar at Marmot Basin was bad, this one trumps it easily. The thing pretty much drags you up the mountain by the asshole. Not a pleasant feeling. When we finally got up and off of that deathtrap, we weren't met will good conditions. It was scary bare. I saw some good snow on a ridge to the west of us, but it would have been a bitch to get there. Looked like some skiers hiked out there, but we decided to go the other way. It wasn't worth it. We got an extra minute of riding on sketchy runs. Better then not snowboarding, I guess.