More Snow for Whistler

Whistler Peak

After November being a record setting month with 560cm of snowfall, we had to wait until today to get our first for December. Overnight, 11cm of dry powder fell to the valley, which made for some good (though variable) skiing all over the mountain. I enjoyed some fresh turns in Whistler and West bowl, followed by skiing out to the base of Whistler on both sides, with more fresh turns. A small inversion (colder in the valley than the peak) is happening right now, which helped lead to the great snow in the valley.

T-Bar Run

The only negative is due to the fact it is our first snow for over 2 weeks, and while it wasn’t quite a ‘dust on crust’ situation (actually really nice powder) – at times what you thought was deep snow ended up being a hard crust sprinkled with snow. This was more evident on the lower mountain, but there were patches in the alpine. With a few more days of snow in the forecast, and with the freezing level rising slightly, the new snow will hopefully blend well with the mountain.

I struggled with the entrance to West Cirque, but was happy with the reward. In fact, the lower area around Doom and Gloom etc was probably the best snow of the day for me – both from West Cirque and Whistler Bowl sides. It was also unusual to get a good fresh line down the final pitch of Grand Finale, which is normally rocky and/or a mogul field, but today I did

Check out the line for the Peak chair at 11:30am – none

Peak Chair load station

Overall, the mountains are in good shape – top to bottom. Once we get a little more snow, it is happy season again.

Update: Sarah took this snap in the morning on her way to work. Busy snowploughs are a good thing

Snow Plough

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Snow Reports.