Chest Deep In Whistler Powder
January 07, 2008
Just to finish off the holiday season on a high note, my friend Greg Dobbin and I decided to ski both mountains and finish the day with a ski tour.
We got a nice early start and went up Blackcomb Mountain from the Upper Village on the Wizard Chair. I highly reccommend this route up the mountain. It's rarely crowded and the atmosphere is 'super-cas'. We noticed that it didn't seem too busy and we thought we were in for some easy pickins for powder.
We went for a quick warm up on our way to the Glacier Creek area to see what lifts were open. Then we looked over at t he Glacier Express. At that point we realized why it seemed so dead on the hill. Everyone was in line at the GE! And right then and there it opened. We decided to try a sneaky approach and head up the Jersey Cream chair and head over to Seventh Heaven. Good plan! The snow was really nice in the trees. Then we went into the Horstman Glacier and up the Showcase T-Bar. We burned a quick lap through the Blowhole and 'Surf's Up' on the Blackcomb Glacier. The snow was good but we were far from the first people their!
Keeping to our plan, even though it was starting to snow quite heavily, we skied to the bottom and went up Whistler Mountain. Much to our chagrin, none of the alpine was open on Whistler Mountain while EVERYTHING had opened on Blackcomb - weird!
Anyway, we waited in a long line at the Peak Chair and watched a few crazies drop the 'Waterfall'. Always good to take your mind off the wait. Kind of like having a ski movie playing in a waiting room at the dentist's office or something.
The wind was really howling and the snow was blowing horizontally but we were determined to get some fresh snow all to ourselves. So, we made the long traverse from the Peak chair to the low shoulder of Flute and put our skins on. It was chilly but we were just about to warm up in a hurry!
As we started skinning up Flute, a group was skinning DOWN! Not what you expect to see, that's for sure. They informed us that it was a total white out up top so they turned around. Hmm we thought...I bet we can find our way. So, we decided to keep going and were well rewarded. We made it up to the top of Flute and got ready to ski after some water and a bite of sugar. We know the terrain well but it was difficult to see. However we followed our noses and eventually discerned a little horizon. Then we were able to figure out exactly where we were.
Guess what. We have received over 100 cm of snow in the past week. And it's been cold. Does that help with the guessing?
It was waist deep, billowing overhead, turn after turn after turn! It was so good we decided to break trail, skin back up and do it all over again. Ah, the beauty of it all.
Then the slog out.
It usually takes between 40 and 60 minutes to get to the village from where we finished skiing. How does 3 hours sound? Complete with breaking trail in deep powder, open water, bridges, alders, and darkness. Can you say F-U-N??
We got to the bottom at about 6:00pm. Considering we started at around 8:30am that is a solid day of skiing - no apres involved!
Very good times, including getting back to Whistler Village!
Let's see what tomorrow brings! For me and Hew Hampshire.