What a grand finale to this year’s Canada trip! It was serendipitous that we missed the connection with Bill Handley on Friday but met him at the Fernie locker room at 9:00AM Sunday. It snowed 8 inches Friday night and the predicted 1-3 inches on Sunday turned out to be 9 inches of nonstop snowfall by the end of the ski day.

Bill and Linda retired from the UK and spend the ski season in Fernie since 2004. The rest of the year they are in England indulging their other passion of sailing. Bill is an inspiration for us retirees. Unlike his predecessor blogger Craig, who tended to cherry pick both days and conditions, Bill skis every day, which is 86 consecutive so far since Fernie opened in 2017-18. Bill also skis bell to bell with just a 40 minute lunch break, and there’s no break on days which are as good as Sunday was. Linda said she was not as zealous, as she has missed about 5 days this season and often only skis to 2PM. But you had better bring your A-game if you want to keep up with either one of them. I managed quite well with all the powder but they would have burned me out much earlier in the day with less forgiving conditions.

Bill details where he skis each day, and here is his summary of Sunday’s skiing: http://www.billhandley.com/2018/02/day- ... e-day.html . I have a few more observations though. Bill remarked that Fernie locals tend to be “Old Side Skiers” or New Side Skiers,” and he is firmly in the latter camp, favoring the New Side for longer steep fall lines and more efficient lift access.

In retrospect it’s very clear Craig was an “Old Side Skier,” and it is probably true that snowfall increases gradually as you move deeper into the Lizard Range, with it eventually being 400+ at Island Lake Snowcat vs. 360 in the upper middle of the resort. The New Side refers to the Timber and White Pass lifts, Siberia, Timber and Currie Bowls that were developed starting in 1998-99. Polar Peak was added more recently. The Old Side refers to Lizard and Cedar Bowls and associated lifts, and Craig favored powder skiing from Cedar and Snake Ridges into Cedar Bowl. He named his website Redtree after the farthest run out Snake Ridge.

Bill and Linda led Tseeb and me on 5 laps out to the end of the Reverse Traverse, which leads from the top of White Pass past the base of Polar Peak (closed both Friday and Sunday). Before Friday I had never been past the Saddles that drop skier’s left into Easter Bowl. The full Reverse Traverse to the top of Skydive is Fernie’s answer to Alta’s High T, and Bill and Linda hit it at warp drive like admin and BobbyD regardless of weather and visibility.

We skied Skydive, Cougar Glades into the bottom of Currie Bowl and Touque Chutes into the bottom of Lizard Bowl from the Reverse Traverse before it closed below Polar Peak. But Bill knew that a lower traverse would still get us to the top of Skydive, so we got two moré runs on Stag’s Leap and Decline/Window Chutes before Currie Bowl closed completely about 12:30pm. The peaks of the Lizard Range are above the lifts and it is inevitable that exposed bowls will be closed for avalanche risk when it’s puking snow as much as on Sunday.

When we exited the top of White Pass the 6th time in wind and blowing snow, I lost track of which way Bill was going. I skied an upper bowl, then trees and a blue run to the base of White Pass, all in the fast accumulating fresh snow. When I did not see Bill, Linda and Tseeb, I realized I needed to get to the bottom of the Timber chair. I expected a long flattish runout, but even here it was lightly tracked powder at least 2/3 of the way down. I guessed right and rejoined Bill, Linda and Tseeb for a 7th lap. It started like their 6th lap with a Knot Chute, then a traverse onto the ridge between Timber and Currie Bowls and finally a drop skier’s right into Triple trees. At this point my hands abruptly became cold and I knew I would have to change from gloves to mittens. Triple Trees crosses 3 catwalks and I bailed on the third one and got down to Timber as fast as possible to get the mittens on. By now it was 2PM which had been discussed as a tentative late lunch, so I went into the lodge but soon got a call from Tseeb that there would be no lunch break.

So I went back out to Timber and joined Bill and Tseeb for their second Siberia Ridge run, White Rabbit. These are steep trees and get a bit tight in spots. This was the point when my legs became less responsive and I remembered Bill’s advice to bear right if I wanted to get out to the Shooting Star groomer earlier.

My final run was another Knot Chute lap to the fourth Anaconda Glade. From there a catwalk leads back to the ridge lower down where Bill dropped into Bootleg trees. These looked as tight as White Rabbit, so I continued on to Diamondback which I learned was one of Liz’ favorite runs. I skied to the car, meeting Liz there at 3:45, having skied 30,900 vertical, about 18K of powder. By my metric of vertical + powder, Sunday ranked #4 lifetime out of more than 1,300 lift served ski days

Liz had been on her own, but was every bit as enthusiastic about the powder as we were, as it was practically everywhere snowing that intensely.

Tseeb took another lap with Bill and finished over 35K. I only ran out of gas late in the day, was pleasantly surprised to last that long at that pace on my 10th straight ski day. But when the powder is that good, effort is reduced, even in the demanding terrain where Bill was leading us.

I’ll anticipate the critique about no pictures.
1) The weather was not conducive.
2) Bill skis nonstop runs, so you have a choice. Stop for pics and ski on your own, or ski all day being shown out-of-the-way local stashes. On a big powder day, I thought the choice was a no-brainer.