BEST RIDING SO FAR THIS SEASON

PISTE             5

LIKELY THE LAST PISTE BEFORE THE CHRISTMAS SEASON RUSH

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

A second Monday offered a milestone for the early season of snowboarding with a fifth day of Piste since opening day.

I wanted to avoid the long traffic delays and long lineups uploading that I had experienced on Piste 4. 

The day was Monday, but Christmas Holidays starts about now for people all around the world heading to Whistler for a winter escape. So I anticipated some heavy traffic for the beginning of the week.

I left the house at 6:40 am and managed to arrive at the paid mountain parking by 8:05 am. I was about 15 minutes quicker, which I credit to a number of factors, one of which was no relentless driving rainstorms. The roads were wet but not ponded by the rain.

My driving had improved as well. I am more comfortable with driving in the mornings that start in utter darkness but then subtly lighten throughout the 100 km drive until hitting morning light at the Village.

I had also been switching between a full tank of gasoline in the morning and a half tank. Obviously, a half tank is lighter, and does not slosh around as much swinging the back end of the car against the corners of the Sea to Sky Highway.

So I filled the tank up just enough, about half way at 25 liters, to get me to Whistler and then back home again. I am pleased with the result so much I might just try a quarter tank, and then gas up in Whistle for the drive home. I find that low gas light on the dash board a bit too annoying to go any lower than a quarter tank.

Whistler has a gas station at Creekside, and then Squamish has at least two gas stations. The next gas station after Squamish is not until just north of the Cypress Mountain causeway from the TransCanada Highway, just a few kilometers south of Horseshoe Bay.

I would not want to be responsible for people running out of gas, so please do not take the gas tank issue to extremes.

The Whistler Valley had warmed up a bit so no new snow on the roadways, and Spring conditions to mid-station even though Whistler Blackcomb received 20 cm of new snow overnight. The temperatures dropped a few degrees below the freezing level above mid-station to provide good conditions for snowboarding.

Whistler Blackcomb has still not opened all the mountain, although two of my favorite runs had been opened for the first time this season.

The Enchanted Forest trail was open. I rode the Ego Bowl and then veered left toward the Emerald Express 6 lift. The Enchanted Forest had about 20 cm of fresh snow on ungroomed runs, allowing for some nice carving down the two or three short drops before merging with the other skiers heading toward the Emerald Express 6.

I repeated the runs two more times to warm up my legs before heading over to the trails below the Big Red Chair.

The Upper Franz’s Run was open, and with the new snow and the light Monday morning traffic, I was able to carve the middle. I also found the short and more flexible freestyle board, the Burton Royale 58, much better on Franz’s, especially later in the day when the run became a bit icy and chunky.

I cannot wait for Lower Franz’s and Lower Dave Murray to open.

I don’t like that connecting trail passed the entrance to Lower Franz’s toward mid-station. You need some speed to get you to a high point junction, but the straight stretch is usually skied out so that a lot of ice and some bumps can throw you.

You need to go fast enough to get you to the junction, but not so fast so as to cause a spill.

I don’t really care about too much, but honestly, I would rather die doing a cart wheel on a snowboard down Lower Franz’s than on an icy pony trail between here and there trying to get to the Big Red Express lift.

The mountain has had more snow than the mountain crews can handle on the Peak so the Peak Express was closed. Whistler was also experiencing high winds and white out conditions in that area. Franz’s Chair was open, but I stayed north because of the prospect of riding steep cliffs in white out conditions.

I skied out to Whistler Village at about 12 noon, and then uploaded on the gondola. I had packed a couple of nut and fruit energy bars, and I had one on the first upload, and after riding out a second time, I had a second energy bar on the second upload.

I then repeated a shortened version of my morning routine by boarding the Enchanted Forest and then heading south to ride Upper Franz’s.

I also skied longer today, beginning my first turn earlier and then finishing in the Village later at 2:35 pm. I had time to upload one more time, but my legs were tired and everything else was generally spent for the day.

The Epic Mix app gave me four pins: The Denali for reaching 100,000 vertical feet for the season, 50 rides, for 50 lifts in a season, the Five-O, for snowboarding five days in one season, Terrain Expert for five total days on any Vail Resort mountain.

I had snowboarded 24,928 vertical feet for the day, almost 3,000 more feet than the previous best day on Piste 2, at 21,974 feet.

Day 5 was definitely the best day so far for the season with perfect snow conditions in the earlier part of the day and then being able to snowboard two of my favorites runs, before riding out to the Village.