Got lucky and arrived at Whistler last Sunday just as some great winter conditions showed up….Since Blackcomb’s last day of operations is Sunday, we spent the week skiing only there – so unless you head up tomorrow for the weekend this report is only to get a probable feel for what Whistler will be like during the next month. Monday snowing hard all day, vis tough up in the Alpine, kept us in the trees mid mountain – and it was great, especially Arthurs! With Bark a close second. Cause of the weather the crowd didn’t show up….Tuesday dawned with bright blue skies and a perfectly smooth blanket of cold smoke new – wind loaded areas very deep and stayed soft through Wednesday. Crowd was in a frenzy early, especially for Glacier, but after the early burst everything mellowed out as the big mountain riders dispersed to pretty much everywhere. Big thing for me was multiple Saudan’s and even more Arthurs. Grooming was perfect all day. Wednesday was mostly broken filtered sun and by far my big day. Nobody on the mountain, Glacier chair had lots of left over untracked lines with the whole mountains grooming perfect winter corduroy, Suadan was still nice and happy (though low down skier right was sun impacted), finally did Spankys to Ruby bowl! Easiest hike up I’ve had in years – side step all the way and the skiing in Ruby was great. More Arthurs happened also. Skied from start to finish on Wednesday ending with something like 4 Glacier rides in a row during the last hour till well after the advertised closing (when has that ever happened at Crystal?). Ended the three days with well over 100k of winter packed powder skiing…I bet Whistler was awesome also, I’ll save that for next trip.
Other – Parking was easy (and kinda expensive). Lunch was Udon soup the first day to Pizza the second, to the best deal of the week – Kids teriyaki bowl (just the right size and the price with the exchange rate was great). Great trip, BIG trip, didn’t want to come home, but this weekend will probably be busy up there again. Bonus is the exchange rate right now, plus the 20% extra Edge card discount at the restaurants on the mountain.
