Black Tusk

This is a report from yesterday (Friday 3rd), which was an excellent sunny day with awesome snow on the majority of the mountain. While not a powder day, which is what we really want, it was the next best thing.

Top of Glacier Express

In the shade was good ‘winter’ snow – perfect for carving, while in the sun it was a bit slushy. Slushy snow is also a lot of fun, it just requires a slightly different skiing technique. I spent most of the time cruising the groomers at high speed, with my eye out for the different snow conditions and had a LOT of fun. There were some bumpy sections, but overall the runs were quite smooth.

This weekend looks like more of the same, just be aware the Peak to Valley Race is on – so some of Whistler mountain is roped off.

View from 7th Heaven

Horstman Tbar Line

Anyone know where this lean to is?

Lean to

Dean's Adieu

I am not 100% positive but I think the face in the photo above is called Dean’s Adieu – can anyone verify?

I haven’t skied much lately but I managed to get up this afternoon to enjoy some powder skiing in the sun

Showcase Tbar

The temperatures have been a little on the warm side lately, resulting in slightly heavy snow – but at least we have been getting some. The base is now reported at over 2 and a half metres, and overall the coverage is pretty darn good.

Today the mountain was empty, at least while I was up there (after lunch), and I skied straight onto every chair. The snow on the Blackcomb glacier and in the Crystal zone was great, as mentioned a little heavy but still a lot of fun. Apparently the morning was a bit foggy with only patches of sunshine, but by the time I got up there the sun was out in full force and the visibility was perfect. Definitely a fun day, especially when it’s been close to a week since my last.

A couple of photos to finish: Stupid East, Surfs Up and Double Rubble (lookers right of Surfs Up)

Stupid East

Surfs Up

Double Rubble

The Peak chair had been closed the last few days, but the snow had kept on falling. This resulted in some deep powder (~40-50cm) to celebrate Australia’s national day. A brisk 15cm overnight left the snow excellent all the way to the valley, so we decided to do some laps via Million Dollar Ridge —> Big Timber down to Creekside. Definitely some of the best skiing of the season – deep, light snow with plenty of fresh lines to choose from.

It wasn’t even busy

Each year on January 26th, plenty of young Australian lads and sheilas dress up to show their national pride. This year was no different with most opting for the usual Aussie flag being used as a cape trick. Some are braver (or drunker) and ski around showing a lot of skin, with my personal favourite being the 2 girls in essentially thermal pants and bikini tops. They looked hot but I bet they are paying for it now, as today was pretty cold up top. Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos of them. There was even some guy in an Australian flag spandex suit, I guess he was at least covering the skin…..

The best powder was in the trees, but we didn’t stop to take any footage. The video below was taken on Big Timber during our second run, which wasn’t as fresh as the first, but the conditions were still epic. Thanks to ‘Straightline’ Freddy, Eric and Joel for being today’s subjects.

What a great day! We were in line for Wizard chair just after 8am, it cracked around 8:15 and we were skiing deep powder soon after I could name a couple of ‘runs of the day’ but I guess our first lap through Spankys takes the prize. Luckily it opened just as we were getting to the top of Glacier chair, and we ended up skiing a line we call ‘Nicole’s Line’ (not shown on map) – it was steep and deep and fresh

Before that, we had around 5 laps of Jersey Cream, a couple through Crystal zone, and they were all essentially fresh lines. The snow was awesome quality; light, deep and virtually no wind effect (minor in a few places). Lift lines were a little large before the alpine opened, but once it did the lines shrank dramatically and it was mostly <5 mins for all chairs.

I tried to take some video today, but due to cameraman error, no video to show!

Saturday - I skied a couple laps in the morning, but came down early for reasons not associated with skiing. They were good laps, but the day was apparently a gong show in the end due to a few lift issues, the alpine remaining closed, and a huge crowd up from Vancouver.

Sunday - Didn't ski, but according to Laura it sounded pretty busy too. The alpines did open, although Blackcomb’s was shut earlier than usual due to high winds.

Thank you Laura for those comments.

Mike

Yet another excellent day skiing, with little to no lift lines. The weakening inversion meant the village was still a bit cold but the top was a perfect ~-5C. A new system is coming in, and it was starting to snow pretty heavy just around lift closing time. Pity tomorrow is Saturday, I’m going to have to get to those lifts early instead of my sleeping in the last few days

We had plenty of great lines, with lots of fresh, which is why I wasn’t that keen to do my least favourite hike on Blackcomb (Chimney) – but that’s what we did and the snow was epic.

Once again there is some decent snowfall in the forecast, and this time I think it is actually going to come true! The rising freezing level gives it away….. The truth of the matter: the upper mountain is awesome and the FL isn’t going to rise anywhere near enough to harm it. Snow is falling and it is supposed to continue all night and most of tomorrow.

Edit: 9pm- The upper mountain was getting pretty warm, but the temps seem to be dropping again now. Went for a walk outside, and there is quite a bit of light snow on the ground
If you are driving up from Vancouver, there is the possibility of freezing rain for you, and for us – so be careful on the road – all the way

Here is a video of Mike riding some pow in the Crystal trees.

7th Heaven View

R.I.P Sarah Burke – a true pioneer

As usual I am running late – so just a quick report. Today was excellent and I had a really good time up there. The alpine is a perfect -6C —> -10C and there is quite a lot of ‘fresh’ to be found. The light snow is blown around so easy it is resulting in a lot of deep pockets. We did a run down Dog Leg and besides from some cornice debris to be wary of, it was completely fresh. Actually, we didn’t need to venture too far to find fresh snow, the Blackcomb glacier was 1/2 fresh making for some choppy fun. I guess the cold temps has kept a lot of people of the hill (including myself).

The snow quality was awesome, and today is one of my best ‘non-powder’ days ever, although (as mentioned) it kinda was a ‘powder’ day at times. The lower mountain, while still having great snow is still really cold due to an inversion right now. Stay up high! I am looking forward to tomorrow

Blackcomb Glacier

What fantastic conditions for our American friends to enjoy their Martin Luther King long weekend. Clear skies and cold temperatures after some fresh snow falling Thursday/Friday. There wasn’t a lot of fresh, around 10cm (~4 inches), but it was light and fluffy. I have to admit that -15C (5F) is a bit too cold for me, but I also have to admit it makes great snow for skiing. Visibility was perfect and I saw and heard a lot of happy people around the mountain today.

Normally American long weekends can be a bit of a gong show, and I heard yesterday was kind of busy but today was really quiet. I uploaded around 10:30 which is normally the worst time to do that, yet I skied onto Wizard chair (and base 2 Blackcomb gondola didn’t have a line either). I didn’t see any lift lines (2-3 minutes at most) during my few hours up there.

The video below shows the Blackcomb glacier, and while it was a bit choppy, the skiing was excellent. The current forecast is also looking excellent

Black Tusk

I just finished another fun day on Whistler mountain, the snow wasn’t ideal (~week of cold sunshine), but fun nonetheless. The upper alpine provided decent turns as did the very bottom of the mountain (due to snow making producing some good quality snow). This week, I skied 3 out of 4 of the ski-outs (missed the upper base of Blackcomb), and they all had great coverage so all you ‘die before download’ people have nothing to worry about.

There was a lot of flat light today, but it was never too bad in my opinion. Late in the day we actually had some amazing lighting, which is when the photos in this post were taken. Black Tusk was looking pretty darn nice!

View from Whistler Mountain

Cheakamus Lake

I’m pretty happy right now, a couple of things in my life are falling into place and I can now look forward to a ~week of skiing powder Check out the forecast – snow to the valley!

Kyle

What a difference one day can make, yesterday was kind of warm and you could barely see your next turn, while today was cold with bright sunshine. I decided to ski Whistler mountain, since I haven’t been up there for quite a while and Symphony chair was the only chair not to open yesterday.

Inukshuk

The snow from mid-mountain down was pretty icy, which was to be expected with the sudden temperature drop. Above mid (well maybe you had to be a bit higher than mid) the snow was good. Symphony and Flute had a nice dusting of fresh, light powder so the skiing there was super fun.

Piccolo and Sun Bowl

I met Kyle on the chair, and he decided to join me on the hike up Flute. Unsure of how the snow would be, since it looked a bit scraped on Flute Shoulder we headed a bit further and found the gully north of Flute North to be almost fresh. The skiing was excellent so we decided to do it again, the video below is from the first lap.

The coverage on Flute North, and my favourite line Pig’s Fancy looks excellent.

Flute North

If you happened to be on Whistler today and wondered what all the dogs were about, this week there is an CARDA (Canadian Avalanche Rescue Dog Association) training and evaluation session going on. First of all, a big thumbs up to ALL ski patrollers, then another thumb up for those who spend the time and energy to train a dog to help with the search and rescue effort.

I’ll finish this post with two more (scenic only) videos. The first is skiing along Matthews Traverse, while the second is a 360 from the top of Flute. The first one shows how I need to get one of those helmet cams that makes you look like a ……..

Disease Ridge

I finally skied in 2012

The theme of the day was flat light, although the sun did try to break through once in a while. I had a few moments of decent visibility but overall I was skiing at 50%, both in speed and aggressiveness. I stuck to the alpine, spending most of my time on 7th Heaven where I found the snow a bit dense, but still a lot of fun.

The coverage up high is really good now (200cm is the unofficial benchmark for a good base), with a lot of the smaller rocks close to and on the main runs now being buried. The traverse to Lakeside Bowl is another story, it might have just been the flat light making it hard for me to pick a good line, but I spent a lot of time stepping around rocks.

There was a crazy dense fog/cloud layer around mid-mountain, the worst I have seen for at least a few years. It was definitely slow going through that.

Anyway, got to go, the Canucks are on. I just had a quick read of this post, and it sounds about right – the snow was decent, the visibility wasn’t but I had a good day anyway. As they say, I bad day on the mountain is better than any other day…..

Lakeside Bowl