Snow Reports

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

A big Thank-You to Sarah for another report, unfortunately I didn’t check my email last night so it is a day late.

sorry, no photos but…..

As there had been no snow overnight and the freezing level had dropped to the valley overnight all of yesterday’s slush from mid mountain down had frozen solid and made for some extreme side-slipping techniques! Above the mid point of the Solar Coaster, however, where the snow hadn’t melted and refrozen the conditions on the groomers was very good:

The Jersey Cream area was all good and we went through the race course a few times (I beat Rob every time – just!). 7th Heaven was in great shape on the groomers but the off piste looked pretty hard and lumpy. We were using race skis so didn’t venture off piste all day. My friend Richard skied Rock n Roll and reported that it too was in awesome shape.

Still nice and sunny and the lower third of the mountain had softened up by the time we skied out. Overall pretty good if you’re into groomers.

Showcase T Bar

Thanks to Sarah for today’s report. Can’t wait until I can start doing some again :

The official line on overnight / 24 hour snow was 3cms but in places it felt like much more but you had to stay high – the glacier around the Showcase and Horstman t-bars on Blackcomb were in great shape with powder on top of smooth but a little crunchy layer underneath. We also skied the Couloir Extreme which had deep powder in places but with a very firm, chunky layer below. You had to be careful. The groomers most everywhere were in great shape but better to stick to the ones that got sun – we skied Rock n Roll a couple of times and it was great, but you could see (and hear) that runs in the shade were harder and more icy.

Showcase T Bar

It was warm and sunny, so we had drinks on the sun-drenched deck at Glacier Lodge and were inspired to end the day on the patio at Merlins. Skiing there we found the lower mountain to be soft and slushy but with a firm base: “hero snow” – easy to carve and hold your edge.

Overall: variable to good.