Mike and Nicole

Today was nothing but sunshine, and it was damn hot! Even at the peak of Blackcomb (well not the actual peak) it was hot. Definitely a day for minimal clothing and zippers undone.

Before I go any further, congratulations once again to Lauren Woolstencroft who added another gold medal to her trophy shelf – that makes a total of 4 Gold from these games alone. I am not sure, but that is probably some kind of record – 4 events, 4 gold – what more could you ask for? (Maybe 5 from 5 if she can win the Super Combined on Saturday)

Back to skiing, it was another good day. Not much powder to speak of, but decent quality snow on the steeps, while a little hard packed on the groomers (from the overnight thaw / freeze). Spankys was fun as usual – check out the video below of a number of friends. Personally I found it a little tough to link my turns, but I still enjoyed it, and was keen for one more run but the lift closed on me

Sapphire Bowl

The top of Sapphire had some fresh stuff, but only a few turns. I am pretty sure those 4 lines at the top are actually in a permanently closed region, so don’t go there!

Don’t forget your sunscreen tomorrow and Saturday – hopefully Sunday will bring some new snow.

The big star of the day was Lauren Woolstencroft, who picked up her 3rd Gold medal of the games in the Womens Standing Downhill. Here is a photo of some of her fans….

Lauren Woolstencroft Fans

She is closely followed by visually impaired cross country skier Brian McKeever who won his second gold medal of the games in the 10klm classic. Congratulations again.

Today was a fun day to be at Creekside watching the downhill events – it is amazing how courageous these athletes are. Not only that, but they are pretty darn quick! Check out the video below of two sit-skiers getting air on ‘Hot Air’ , the last rollover of the course. If that doesn’t impress you, especially the recovery by the second guy, then you are hard to impress.

Sam Danniels Fan Club

One more thing, local boy Sam Danniels had a huge support crew there today. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to reward them with a medal winning performance, but a big thumbs up to him and all the rest of the athletes (especially the Canadian and Aussies!) Speaking of whom, Australian Marty Mayberry and Cameron Rahles-Rahbula who won Silver and 4th place in the Mens Standing Downhill. I happened to meet Marty’s dad in the crowd and he was very proud of his son.

Andrea Dziewior

That is a picture of Andrea Dziewior (I think) as she crossed the finish line for a 9th place finish. She promptly crashed and had to be taken to the hospital – so hopefully she is okay.

There are plenty more athletes I should mention, but time is running out for me, so one last congrats to Viviane Forest for winning GOLD in the womens visually impaired downhill.

Another great day for Canada.

Mike

The last few days have been a little moody at the top of the mountains. The alpines have either been closed all day, or opened late. Yesterday Whistler’s alpine was closed all day, due to high winds and lots of (wet/heavy) snow. The freezing level dropped overnight back down to around 1000m, and riding the lift up today I was hoping it had dried out the snow enough (without leaving a crust) – and guess what? It did

T-Bar Roll

Today we lapped Peak chair on Whistler, and had numerous great runs – the powder was good (although not as deep as I expected at around 10-15cm). The visibility was in and out all day as clouds/fog layers came and went, overall though, there was only a couple of times where the viz was bad enough to affect my skiing.

West Bowl

Whistler Bowl is in fantastic shape, pretty much as good as it gets. Totally filled in with soft snow, and not many moguls to speak about (still a few and a bit of debris around). Grand Finale was awesome, as was West Cirque – which we did a few times. The video below is of Stewart skiing West Cirque. I didn’t ski the lower mountain (as I downloaded the Creekside gondola) but it was probably a bit ugly as the snow around mid-mountain was turning a bit hard packed.

Firstly, congratulations to Lauren Woolstencroft for being a double gold medallist (Canada’s first for these games) – she won the standing Slalom and Giant Slalom events (and I think she has more to come). Here is a photo of her and Karolina Wisniewska accepting their Gold and Bronze medals from the Slalom.

Canadian Medallists

It is good to see two Canadian flags being raised at the same time

Canadian Flags

Next up is Brian McKeever, who won Gold in the 20klm cross country. Brian was the center of a bit of controversy during the Olympic games – he was the first disabled person (maybe first Canadian only, and I say ‘only’ pretty lightly) to qualify for the big games. Unfortunately, he was part of a 5-man squad and only 4 were allowed to race (4 per country maximum) – and he was the unlucky one chosen to sit out.

Brian has now won a total of 4 Gold medals (not sure about Silver and Bronze) over the last 3 Paralympic games. Wow! Good on you Brian, and I hope to see you competing at the 2014 Sochi games.

Here is a photo of him receiving his Gold.

Brian McKeever

Thanks to Justa Jeskova for the photos, including this one of a band playing a free concert as part of the Whistler Live experience.

Whistler Live Music

Sadly, I just found out that Canadian Paralympic athletes don’t win ‘prize money’ like the athletes from the Olympic games. During the big games, Canadian won CAD$20,000 for a Gold medal, and $15,000 / $10,000 for Silver and Bronze. The Paralympic athletes win their medal (obviously) and a hand shake. Where is the love?
Source

Today was a bit of a gong show regarding parking (again), but that was soon forgotten once you hit the slopes. It was a lot calmer than yesterday, and the visibility was pretty good. Showcase T-bar opened after being closed during the last storm and the Blackcomb Glacier was sweet. A grade snow, and plenty of it

Spankys is in fantastic condition, and the better visibility made for epic runs. Sapphire was sick (see video of Nicole below) and Zut Zut never fails to please.

I guess there isn’t much more that needs to be said.

Spankys

Epic day skiing powder! Contender for best day of the season.

Personally, I would prefer a bit more visibility (as it was non-existent most of the day), but some people thought today was IT. Some friends of friends – old time ski bums (not that old actually) were talking about it being their best day since some day back in 2002. It wasn’t much of a day for taking photos, but that’s okay by me. It was quality snow, and it continued to fall basically all day (it actually cleared up a little towards the end).

The reality, the snow was sensational – it was just a little hard (to impossible) to see it. We ended up lapping Spankys all day, with run after run of ‘can you believe this’. We entered Sapphire bowl just before lunch, and could have sworn we were the first ones there (not likely, but it was snowing so hard whatever tracks there were had been covered)

Steep and Deep was the name of the game, and we played it all day long

Excelerator chairlift

Lastly, here is a short video while riding Excelerator chair – nothing special, but you can see it was snowing pretty hard.

Update: CTV has bowed to public pressure, and are now showing the Paralympics Opening Ceremony ‘live’ (right now so change the channel – don’t believe the guide saying it is the news) Oh, sorry, but it is only showing in British Columbia, so if you live elsewhere, you will need to wait to see the taped version. I guess this is better than not showing it ‘live’ at all – but c’mon!

The Olympics are supposed to be about equality and what not – so lets show these ‘disabled’ athletes some equality and show their events live – everyday. If anything, they are showing more courage and determination then their able-bodied counterparts.

Everglades

It’s good to be skiing powder again

We received a good overnight snowfall, and while it was a bit heavy clearing it off the car, the skiing up top was pretty good. Variable is the term for the day. At times you were skiing through white-out over 50% powder and 50% wind scoured terrain, the top of 7th Heaven comes to mind. There, we hit up the Everglades first, but found it was a bit tricky predicting whether that lump in front of you was deep pow or a big, hard mogul. So on our next run down, we just followed the main piste (Hugh’s Heaven) and it was a great choice.

Mike

Nicole

Prime Rib on the Horstman Glacier was a complete white out, but decent snow so I managed to link a couple of un-graceful turns. Fraggle Rock to Cancerman was worth the effort, and I noticed someone is trying to re-name Cancerman with a double black sign called ‘Pete’s Paradise’ or something like that.

Around lunchtime, the sun came out and it was so bright it was hurting my eyes! So, the visibility was definitely better in the afternoon

Overall, a great day, with fantastic snow in places. To finish, here is a video of Mike and Nicole skiing in Spankys. Unfortunately the first video of Mike was blurry above the choke point.

Update: I forgot to congratulate Canadian Erik Guay who has just won the Overall World Cup Super G title. After a strong Olympic showing (two 5ths and a 16th), Erik continued to ski well – winning the last 2 Super G’s of the season (Kvitfjell, Norway and Garmisch Partenkirchen, Germany) to take the overall points lead. In between winning the Super G’s, he also posted the third best time in the Downhill (Garmisch).

Big Thumbs Up

Glacier chair

Another good day! It is snowing, and relatively cold up top with the off-piste conditions starting to get nice. Still a little bumpy, but nothing fixes a bumpy mountain like fresh snow Speaking of which, we are expecting a good dump over the next few days (20-40cm’s), and with a freezing level basically hovering near the valley – Yeah March!

The majority of today was cloudy with light flurries, and the light was quite flat at times. Overall though, the visibility was still decent, and we even had some brilliant patches of clear sky – as seen in the first 2 photos. The new snow has groomed into the runs nicely, 7th Heaven was good and empty, but my pick for the day was Crystal zone. I did a few runs through there and enjoyed every one.

Davies Dervish

Do I have to keep mentioning how empty the mountains are? (although this run is often empty, who really likes 35+ degree mogul runs…..oh yeah Alexandre Bilodeau does )

Also, while dropping by the Rendezvous for a bite to eat today, we had a bit of a laugh at how you have to walk down to get onto the patio. Check out this photo from today, then compare to one I took back in December 2003. You can see how the main access stairs are fully snowed in, and how the balcony handrail along the front is the snowline. Yup, we got a lot of snow in the alpine this year – not so much on the lower elevations, but who cares

Rendezvous

Rendezvous lodge on Blackcomb Mountain

Lastly, here is a short video of Mike and Steve enjoying a leisurely run on 7th Heaven’s Cloud Nine. Snowing lightly, no one around, visibility was pretty good, actually fun skiing.

The temperatures have dropped enough to make snow – picture taken at top of Blackcomb gondola, but they were making snow in the valley too.

Snow Gun

Up top received some new snow yesterday, but I heard it was ‘dust on crust’ in most places. Today I went up, and while the new snow is nice, it is not quite enough to hide the hard packed base underneath. Luckily the forecast is looking pretty good for more snow in the alpine as the weekend approaches.

Overall the skiing was decent with pretty good visibility, especially considering it looked a bit miserable from the valley. While the morning was bright sunshine, some clouds rolled in around 10am and the sky turned dark. Personally, I had no troubles with the light during my few runs on Blackcomb. However, as I type this (2pm), it is starting to flurry in the valley, so it might be a bit harder to see now. 4 seasons in one day! except cold the whole time

Pakalolo

The coverage in the alpine is still amazing, and is pretty much as good as I have seen it. The following photo is of the big rock below ‘The Bite’, which is easily seen while riding Glacier chair – while I have seen this rock buried more, this photo is taken after a few weeks of no significant snowfall, with warm temps with sunshine.

Big Rock

We may have had warm weather for the Olympics, but with it turning cold again, we should end up with perfect race conditions for the Paralympics which are due to start this weekend. With the dropping temperatures, the snow that has previously softened / melted re-freezes and makes for a solid, hard packed surface. This is more like the weather we were expecting last month.

Lastly, a nice view of the top of Excelerator chair.

Top of Excelerator Chairlift

Update: I forgot to mention the transportation issue. They have opened parking lots 1,2,3 and 6 but there is still plenty of parking that is closed. So if you plan on driving, make sure to get here early as those spots fill up fast. The mountains are empty, but the lots are full! I wish they could keep the bus schedule we had during the Olympics, it was great having them run so often.

Views from Blackcomb

Today is the first day I have skied for a long time, and while I have heard lots of reports from friends I didn’t know quite what to expect. On their advice I took up my carving skis and had a blast. The snow up top is quite hard packed, but the groomed runs are super smooth and generally soft enough to get a good edge in. Combine that with cloudless skies, no lift lines and mild temperatures and it was a really fun day.

Whistler Valley from Blackcomb

Here is a nice shot of the lack of lift lines for Jersey Cream and Glacier Express chairs.

JC Flats

The lower mountain was a bit slushy and starting to show a few bare patches, but the alpine has plenty of snow. The coverage up top is awesome with plenty of the normally exposed rocks covered up. Check out the top of 7th Heaven chairlift, an area that is normally quite rocky, but not at the moment

Top of 7th Heaven Chairlift

Another region that is normally very rocky is Moonscape, but it is also filled in. This picture doesn’t really show it that well, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Overlooking Moonscape