REAL POWDER DAY ON MOUNTAIN

PISTE             4

PEOPLE ENJOYING WINTER CARNIVAL ATMOSPHERE ON WHISTLER BLACKCOMB

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The Whistler Five-O occurred on Thursday with 50 cm of new snow overnight.

Unfortunately, I was not the only one watching the snow fall reports and the driving was slow into the Village beginning at about 23 km out.

The village grind began in earnest at the Function Junction traffic lights with a lot of local traffic merging onto the highway traffic heading into the Village.

The morning was still salvageable though until entering the Village all geared up to find an hour long queue for uploading on the Whistler Gondola. I guess everyone available decided to join in the fresh powder fun.

I made my first turns at 10:30 am. I really experienced a different ride through all that deep light packed powder.

The extra physical effort on the quads and torso was a bit awkward for the first two to three runs. The day was awesome though with the first winter carnival type atmosphere of the season on Whistler Blackcomb with the trees holding a lot of snow on their branches and the sky thick with snow clouds and a constant snow fall throughout the day.

The daytime snow fall was more pleasant than the whirring of the snow machines and the sideways spraying of machine snow during PISTE 2.

The avalanche prevention guns were booming on and off all day long.

The mountain crews had a lot to handle with 50 cm overnight after not getting any snow for many nights since opening day and probably normally expecting about 10 cm overnight.

Perhaps as a  result, despite the new snow, many of the trails were still closed. Only 15 of the 26 lifts were open, giving skiers safe access to only 65 of 240 trails.

The lift line ups were not so bad, although the runs that were open were somewhat busy, especially with the ski school for kids, which pushed a lot of experienced snowboarders and skiers to try runs that were open but obviously not groomed.

From the Emerald Express 6 looking down, a number of people had difficulty getting out of self made rabbit holes built into the powder on the trails next to the groomed runs, but no one looked like they were in danger, seemingly quite enthralled at the winter adventure.

People arriving in Vancouver to ski in Whistler should not feel deterred. The heavy rain in the city streets is all snow on the mountains at Whistler Blackcomb.

The Sea to Sky Highway was a bit rain wet with some pooling of water causing slight hydroplaning in spots during the morning.

The ponds of water can surprise drivers travelling at highway speeds so it would be best to stay on or about the speed limit, if not slower, especially in the corners when the rains are so heavy.

I was thankful to have replaced my windshield wiper blades a few days ago as the wipers needed to be on full speed for almost the entire 101 km drive.

I salvaged the day again from the late start by skiing through lunch.

I had all but given up on the day and decided to snowboard out when the clouds came in and the clouds and snow reduced visibility. But when I reached the Village, I noticed the Whistler Gondola did not have any line up what so ever.

So I looked at the Village clock and then looked at the lack of a line-up and then looked at the Village clock again before deciding to upload and snowboard out one more time.

The gondola ride gave me a chance to rest my legs and dry out my glasses and goggles. The second snowboarding out was an awesome ride with not so many people. The equipment racks outside the lodge were full, so I guess a lot of people headed inside for lunch when the snow clouds moved in around 12 noon.

The second snowboard out was such a good ride that I uploaded again for a third ride out from the top.

When I got to the Village a third time, I was ready to go home. Even if I could convince myself to go up again, I could not since I had missed the last Valley upload at 2:45 pm by 5 minutes. I was rather happy with my day anyway, so I headed home.

The Epic Mix recorded my day total at 19,357 vertical feet.