SEASON 5 FOLLOWS STORM

ODD BALL SNOW FALL MEANT THROBBING THUNDER THIGHS

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Whistler is experiencing a slow opening season with a decidedly lack of snow since the traditional opening day before the American Thanksgiving Weekend.

The stubbornness of nature seems to be persisting with more snow over Christmas but a giant cold front that moved the temperatures down to minus 20 Celsius for about a week.

Yesterday was a nice combination of new snow and warmer weather to a more reasonable -3 Celsius.

The resort alpine ski trails are still only about 60 percent open due to lack of snow, though, and with the resort needing a bit of time to ensure that alpine trails are safe for winter use. But skiers and snowboarders can already ride out to Creekside and the Village and Village North at the end of the day with lifts closing at about 3 pm.

I had also waited a bit for the Creekside Gondola and Big Red upgrades to complete as I like to make the start of the day from this southernmost point of the resort for uploading. With the prospect of only 30 percent of the trails open at minus 20 Celsius temperatures, I did not mind waiting a few weeks for the remaining parts to get delivered for the upgrades.

Nevertheless, I did not have a single tiny bit of trouble getting up at 4:30 am for the first day riding at Whistler as I had become a bit restless with all the delays. Typically, I have gotten a few days in already. 

I will be honest though, I did get one day in during the month of November riding at an undisclosed location. But getting from that partial opening in November to being able to ride every week in late December and January seems now to have been a long haul waiting.

I had to get up early because the commercial bus leaves downtown Vancouver at 6 am. This 6 am works for me because I like to upload as early as possible. The bus arrives at Creekside at 8 am, giving me about 30 minutes to gear up and use the washroom before joining the line to upload. I also had a small breakfast packed to eat while waiting for uploading to begin.

I bought a new snowboard bag that was a bit big for the small locker, so I spent $20 on a larger locker that also fit my backpack and running shoes. The price has gone up already by $5 since last season. And having spent $40 on a round trip bus ticket, I was noticing the cost of all the little add-ons adding up.

The biggest problem so far was that the public transit app indicated the first bus would run at 5:24 am to take me to the location of the commercial bus pick-up. But having been early so as not to miss the public transit bus and then waited until 5:35 am in case the public transit bus was running late, without a bus showing up at all I would miss the ride to Whistler.

So, I had to call a taxi and spend $8 on a 5 to 10 minute ride through the downtown that should have cost me $3.25 on public transit. I would have to spend another $3.25 on public transit to get home from the drop off location at 6 pm.

Having complained about the cold weather and waited for the warmer weather, I became increasingly concerned as the rain did not stop or even slow down after Squamish.

Rain on top of 15 cm of fresh powder makes crap. Moreover, my outerwear is not rain proof, only rain resilient. I seemed in store for a pretty miserable day, especially since I could not just turn around the car and drive back to Vancouver. I had to wait until the end of the day for the private bus.

I uploaded anyway.

The Creekside Gondola was bigger and smoother. And the Big Red was wider. But the journey to the top near Roundhouse Lodge was still the longest especially with a bit of drizzle in warm temperatures that quickly made me realize that I would be too warm and thereby sweat from the inside while getting drizzled on from the outside.

I tried really hard not to get grumpy before making my first tracks of the season.

I managed my emotions by heading north, as far away from the drizzling clouds as I could. But the drizzling continued for about one hour until the temperatures dipped ever so gently so that the snow started to fall, although still melting, and turning into drizzles on my face.

I obtained new gloves for the boarding season, and them being leather on the outside and insulated on the inside, my hands soon became the most comfortable place on my body.

Westcoast British Columbia powder is pretty heavy at the outset, but with a layer of fresh mist the carving was tough on my body especially on the first day with my body still accustomed to road cycling, some pretty predictable weight training exercises and a bit of jogging, but not the freeform mayhem of snowboarding.

As a consequence, I kept to some pretty basic slalom rides, which became more and more required as the ski hill became more and more populated with hotel guests on skies. So, this is Christmas, I guess.

The morning rain did stop for light flurries during the day. But the damage to the British Columbia powder had already been done.

I discovered that the Whistler Village Gondola at Olympic Mid-Station would be busy all day right up until 3 pm. So, I cranked a hard left toward the Garbanzo Express for uploading.

I had a lot of fun slalom riding the black diamond trail Seppos into As It Happens and then cranking left again toward the Garbanzo Express as I kept one eye on the line-up for the Whistler Gondola at Olympic Mid-Station.

I also had fun riding Ego Bowl into the Enchanted Forest.

I was tempted to head over to Blackcomb and run my chances that the Honeycomb would be in better condition, but the Peak to Peak Gondola was temporarily stalled and I did not want to waste time changing mountains only to discover that the runs I had left were the better runs.

I just kept going, getting some easy fun runs in by heading right when offloading from the Garbanzo lift to head down the Orange Peel. I did try the Upper Dave Murray Downhill, but the sign said ‘risky business’, and I found that the groomers had not been here for quite some time, and that the area to the bottom was still roped off with a running creek showing.

I did not want to end up on the nightly news, having to be rescued from a running ‘creek well’ after the sign clearly said, ‘ride at your own risk’. I had to crawl along on my stomach and snowboard for a bit to get out onto the groomed Pony Trail because my loose foot kept on thumping threw the two to three feet of new powder. No problem though, because this short painless experience was all part of the wild fun and adventure in the alpine this Christmas season.

The conditions did take a lot out of my legs early on. And so, I braved the line-ups at the Whistler Village Gondola to head to the Roundhouse Lodge for lunch. Reservations are no longer required but the line-ups were long, everyone else presumably had the same appetite after getting drizzled on early and then having to work three times as hard through the 15 cm of new snow.

And then here we were, apparently everyone else from the trails as well, hungry and waiting for the grill to get the orders moving at 11:55 am.

The Roundhouse has new menus boards with the prices having been bumped up a bit. The price of the burger is not so bad, as it comes off the cafeteria style service pretty fresh. But the price of the French Fries, oh my.

I did notice too that the poutine would require an extra $5 for pulled pork poutine, as opposed to just poutine, which was not on the menu at all last season when I was there.

Last year, I only went for two days at the end of the season, and I was disappointed not to be able to purchase pulled pork poutine, after developing a craving for the specialty riding all morning.

I went out onto the patio and into the Umbrella Bar, for a pint of Pale Ale on tap as I ate my lunch. I should have stayed for a few more pints, because as the afternoon turned out, my legs were pretty much entirely spent after one or two more runs.

I pushed them too hard in the afternoon to the point that I had to download at 2:45 pm from the Creekside Gondola, instead of skiing out down the Dave Murray Downhill. I could have skied out, but when your legs are tired and you have not tested the run yet in such unusual snow conditions, a little mistake can make everything a lot worse.