Fernie Day 15: Steep And Deep

Friday: Our last day on the hill - it was pretty awesome, I'm stoked that we signed the trip off like this...

Mart and I started by heading up into Lizard Bowl; I'd have liked to be first in the queue, but the day before was fairly heavy on the hill and we finished things off with quite a few beers in the evening. Lizard wasn't fully open the day before, so we knew it was going to be fresh at the top. We weren't dissapointed:

That first run through Lizard was sweet. The top half was fresh all the way, while the bottom half was more tracked, but still yielded nice fresh turns - you just had to pick and choose a little.

Back on the Bear Chair, and when we got to the top we found Cedar Bowl had been opened - the first time in a few days. It was looking deep.

We made a bit of an error when we dropped straight into the bowl - the top part is pretty mellow and when it's deep like that it's not really possible to get anything going. Still, we turned up on one of the shutes from KC Shutes and it was still looking good:

When we got to the bottom of the bowl Mart decided a quick binding set-back was in order. He was on his DH; keeping it afloat is difficult when it's deep - just like the T2. I was already rocking my front binding set back by about 1 1/2 inches, which makes a big difference. Sick!

The loop back to the top of Cedar is pretty long: use the Haul Back t-bar, ride down the Boomerang chair, ride down to the Bear Chair and then take that to the top.

We were set on traversing further across the bowl to drop in on steeper terrain. We decided that seems as though we hadn't yet travelled down Snake Ridge, we'd make the full traverse and hike to get there...

It was easily worth it! Snake Ridge can take you down to the run called Steep and Deep - a slogan for Fernie itself. I'd have bought the day's lift ticket purely for that first decent down Steep and Deep. We weren't the first to go that way - but it was just about fresh. Totally awesome. With the terrain being steep it was so easy to just float your way down. Huge face shots. Probably my favourite run in Fernie, except maybe for one of the decents on the Cat Day.

As soon as we got to the bottom Mart decided to head back for The Fish. That's what it's made for so I couldn't argue. I hooked up with Ciara to take a run through Lizard and pick up some snacks from The Bear's Den. I had no intentions of coming off the hill for lunch!

It didn't take Mart long to get back to the top, at which point the three of us met up with Simon and headed back towards Snake Ridge. No doubt this terrain was a learning experience for Ciara, but it was worth it. It can be hard to commit to a steep line but she did get a few decent turns in. Still so much fun just to try it.

Here's a shot of Snake Ridge. We also got to take a look at Fish Bowl.

We ended up taking four runs down Snake Ridge. We dropped into Steep and Deep twice and Red Tree twice. By far the first run was the best, but the others were still worth the treck. I took a little bit of video on my still camera the third time through. Even with quite a bit of traffic through there you can still see that there're great lines.

We were pretty wrecked by the end of the day. Mart and I took the last run by ourselves. We wanted to hit it one more time but we couldn't make it with the lift timings for getting back; probably a good thing.

What a way to close things out. Fernie is awesome - steep and deep!