SUNNY DAY AND FRESH SNOW FOR A GREAT DAY

ADJUSTMENTS TO THE STANCE WILL BE REVISITED

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Finally a sunny day on a scheduled day off from work on Saturday to remind me that the season pass was worth the investment.

The Burton Custom snowboard had improved my riding throughout the day, but I was experiencing some knee tenderness, possibly because of the more aggressive riding on the new board.

The board has the new channel binding system, while the Burton Mission flex bindings have a dial in template that enables micro tuning of the position of the bindings. The two systems combined enables a rider to adjust the stance on the board to fit every size, shape and skill level of riders.

I easily adjusted my goofy foot outward a bit by loosening the two screws and dialing the binding to the right ever so slightly. The difference was felt immediately, putting strain on a different part of the same knee that had been experiencing some tenderness.

I also had more difficulty carving healside, but going toeside was much easier, sharper and quicker on the Upper Dave Murray Downhill on Whistler.

The two screws on the adjustable channel binding loosened on the first two runs. I used one of the screw drivers on the public tool set available outside the Whistler Village gondola station and Roundhouse Lodge to tighten them up before the next run.

I thought of going back to the old stance, but I decided to ride out the day and see what happens.

The tension in my knee did eventually lessen, but I still experienced some riding difficulties with the board dipping forward toeside a bit too easily. I adjusted my weight a bit by leaning backward more, and I mean just a bit backward and down, which seemed to help with the knee issues and steering control.

I also put some variety in my day by riding a few different trails. The Garbanzo Express beside Olympic Mid-station gondola takes skiers and riders to the very top of the Dave Murray Downhill. Instead of taking the Big Red Express after the Creekside Gondola, I headed down and to the right toward Garbanzo. 

The trail has a long flat section so you have to be small and quick to minimize the slowing forces of the headwind, otherwise you run out of momentum and have to push scrape and crawl until the next declining section of the trail.

With the weather nice and a few centimeters of overnight snow on a Saturday, the greatest challenge was avoiding the weekend lineups for the lifts and gondola. The groomed trail conditions were good until about 2 pm when the mountain became skied out and the trails showed some ice patches. The Upper Dave Murray was good for carving in the morning, but by the early afternoon the run had become a bit chunky. So more of a slalom approach on the far right section was much easier.

I had decided to complete my first Mountain Traverse of the season and headed down to Whistler Village to transfer over to Blackcomb at about 11 am.

The Village lineups for uploading were like the very start of opening day at 8 am and possibly the longest I have seen since I avoided opening day and Christmas Day this season. So I took a chance and headed to the Upper Village to upload on the Blackcomb Gondola. A brisk walk from Whistler Village to Blackcomb Village takes just a few minutes, and as we say, persistence paid off, with a much shorter line-up.

A complete mountain traverse was not to be today, though. I had an inclining of suspicion when Ross’s Gold was closed off for a competition. This closure forced me onto Cruiser and into the Honeycomb. The Honeycomb is an awesome run as the trail was cut out of the mountain topography, which is kind of difficult to explain in layman’s terms, but the trail bends and curves spectacularly down, down, down the mountain.

What went wrong were the line-ups to the lifts of course, with Jersey Cream backed up to Glacier Lodge with Christmas-long crowds. The Glacier Express was backed-up as well, as was the Showcase T-Bar at the top. 

I still put in another 25,642 vertical feet despite the long line-up uploading at Creekside at 8:30 am, but the mountain traverse would not happen.

I decided to abort the traverse and avoid the expected line-ups at 7^th Heaven and at the Village by taking the Peak to Peak back to Whistler. I short changed the traverse to ride the Saddle a few times before the end of the day, but the line-up at the Peak chair was too long as well, as I suspect many people were lining up to ski out at the end of the day down Peak to Creek.

I got out of the line and rode Upper Franz’s run, then around the Big Red Express to get to Garbanzo so that I could ride the Dave Murray Downhill from start to finish. The Dave Murray Downhill starts at the top of Garbanzo and finishes at Creekside. 

The Creekside Gondola did not have any line-up to speak of so I did another complete Dave Murray Downhill before deciding to end the day just after 3 pm, with deteriorating snow conditions, busier trails with people beginning to ski out for the day, and very tired legs.

The early finish meant I was able to truncate the que getting out of the underground Creekside parking, which the previous week took about 30 minutes from the third level when I rode the last run of the day after 3:30 pm.

Another excellent day on Whistler Blackcomb. After a long work week, and all that exercise and fresh air, I slept for about 12 hours shortly after dinner and a few spirits.