RIDING A SUNNY DAY WITH PARTIAL CLOUDS

PISTE             11

EVERYTHING BETTER NOW AFTER BEING SO COLD YOU’D RATHER BURN THE TICKET

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

A lot has gone on in the high alpine during the last few weeks.

When the snow was supposed to fall, the deep cold swept through the mountains instead. I headed home early one day just because the extreme cold had started to do damage to my face and body.

The unpredictable weather is all part of the adventure package, but having a season pass meant I did not have to endure the extreme beyond my comfort zone on February 3.

Then I had a bad fall that included three cartwheels and a hard landing on ice that bruised up my right side to the colour of deep black one foot in length during mid-February.

I had been carving down the Olympic Run when merging skier traffic forced me into some tree line shadows that hid an ice patch. I had slowed down to turn but my edge caught the ice patch and I tumbled for a while – for such a long spell it seemed that I began thinking during the briefest of moments that I was going to end up really damaged in the tree line.

I managed to finish the day, but well before I began walking back to the car, the swelling had set in and had stiffened up my right side. I knew I would be okay though because the injured area started itching the next day after the first day right away. Most of the bruising is gone now, but I still have a bit of an itch.

The cold was too cold to snowboard anyway at – 20 Celsius, and I recovered from my injury while at the same time waiting for warmer temperatures. Anything warmer than – 12 Celsius would have been nice.

I tested everything out with some long walks and a partial snowboarding day on March 1. And this week the weather was turning for the better with 8 cm of new snow the day before and a morning temperature in Whistler Village comfortable enough for the day to shape up as the first full day back on the mountain on Friday, March 8.

When the morning alpine starts at -10 Celsius, on a sunny day everything else in comparison seems warm enough by 11 am. I was a bit late out of the Creekside parking lot, but I still managed to make a first turn at the top of the Big Red Express just a few minutes after 9 am.

I tried a couple of short practice runs toward the Emerald 6 Express, one down through the Enchanted Forest and one down the Old Crow. One centimeter of new snow fell overnight, but these two runs still had not been skied out from the previous day’s much heavier snowfall.

I felt fit so I decided to head down to Whistler Village to begin the ‘mountain traverse’ in an effort to break my single day vertical feet record.

The days have become longer as well and I had the added advantage of an extra hour with the lifts operating until 4 pm instead of closing at 3 p.m.

Once at Whistler Village I uploaded to Blackcomb on the Excalibur Gondola, transferred to the Excelerator and then snowboarded down to the Jersey Cream Express.

I do not check my stats during the day, as peaking at the numbers would take a bit of the edge off and kill the suspense for the end of the day .

The transfer over to Blackcomb seemed to take forever, and I began having self doubt about the ‘mountain traverse’ as if I would always be 30 feet behind on the day.

More bad news as Ross’s Gold was fenced off for a race event this weekend. So I had to go around about along Cruiser to get to Stoker. Whistler also has constructed a race course and an extensive terrain park toward the Emerald 6 Express. Blackcomb has built World Cup jumps to the south of the Blackcomb Gondola.

Stoker was ideal with about three centimeters of snow and no ice showing. I uploaded at the Blackcomb Gondola mid-station and I rode Stoker two more times, each time riding underneath the gondola toward Springboard to get to Stoker.

I then swung over to the Glacier Express for some decent vertical down Glacier Drive before heading back up Jersey Cream and over to 7^th Heaven.

I checked out Cloud 9 for the first time, but I stayed to the north, out of the heavy stuff, because of not wanting to get caught up somewhere when I really wanted to accumulate vertical.

After a couple of runs at 7^th Heaven, I headed back to Rendezvous Lodge for lunch where I had a beef cheddar bacon burger. I still had two food vouchers that were given to me by mountain staff after getting stuck on the Blackcomb Gondola during the first weeks of operations. The food vouchers were not quite enough, and I still had to use $10 of my own cash to pay for the burger and a large coffee.

I then used the 15 minutes on the Peak 2 Peak Gondola transferring back to Whistler Mountain for an added rest before accumulating more vertical on the Dave Murray Downhill all the way down to Creekside.

The Dave Murray was also in good condition, with only one or two ice patches below Coach’s Corner.

I then headed back up towards the Saddle. The Saddle was a bit icy and rather crowded with all levels of skiers so I took it easy not wanting to re-injure anything and ruin the completion of the ‘mountain traverse’.

The Epic Mix app gave me a pin for 20 rides in a single day around 3:40 pm.

I was already having my longest day ever. The body really conditions well since in November and December I was already finished physically and mentally by 2 pm.

I was able to catch the Big Red Express two minutes before closing at 3:58 pm.

As was the entire day, the end of the day was awesome, with the sun beginning to set and the colours in the sky and along the mountains beginning to change.

And although there were many people getting ready for their last run of the day, most of the mountain visitors had already finished or were skiing out somewhere below the off loading station of the Big Red Express.

The last ride down was a bit spooky thinking that ‘if I fall and break a leg, no one will find me’ before the start of the next day.

There were also fleeting moments of luxury having the Dave Murray Downhill all to myself at certain points.

The end result on my day was a 36th pin over 19 days on the season and a one day record of 39,970 vertical feet over both mountains. I rode my favorite runs: Enchanted Forest, Old Crow, Stoker, Glacier Drive, Dave Murray Downhill, Franz’s Upper and Lower, the Saddle and then added an end of the day run beginning from the top after 4 pm.

The Epic Mix App has me down for 398.456 vertical feet for the season, but I know I am over 400,000 because I have noticed throughout the season that the app has not registered several of my lift rides.

Once again though, I am riding for free until the end of the season and I am having awesome work outs in the fresh air of the high alpine.