The skiing was sensational today. It was a beautiful sunny day, but it was quite cold.

We skied Blackcomb today and I doubt that it got about -7 degrees at the top. The snow was a little firm in most places, but you could still get an edge. Over at Crystal runs like Ridge Runner and Rock and Roll were beautiful with the snow being a  little softer and as always groomed to perfection.

7th Heaven was also nice as the sun softened the snow up a little without it going slushy.

The bottom of the mountain is slowly losing its snow with the high traffic areas becoming a little brown and very slushy, still, its pretty good for this time of the year, and nothing that some grooming won’t be able to fix up.

Skied over to Whistler and Patrol and Mountain Safety had but up a few signs advising people to go down Dave Murrey instead of Franz’s run as the conditions were marginal, but I would have to say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with Franz’s, and the only place that it seams to be getting thin is if you went down Peak to Creek, at the very bottom.

Wow, what a day.

I woke to blue bird skies in Whistler and thought to my self that I would get up the hill early today, just in case like yesterday the clouds rolled in. I am super glad that I did.

I was skiing by myself today, which was great, sometimes I find it a little hard to stay motivated to keep doing runs, but today I did not have that problem. I headed up Blackcomb and on the lower mountain the snow was sounding quite hard, but then it was early and the sun had not had a chance to soften things up.

Once I got to the top Wizard chair the snow was looking, and sounding quite nice. I headed up Solar Coaster and headed over to 7th Heaven. The views from 7th are unbeatable. Once I got to the top I headed over to Couloir Extreme (Sudan Couloir) and went down the ridge until I was standing on top of Hawaii. There was quite a stiff breeze that was blowing a lot of snow into the couloir. I jumped in and it was beautiful, nice wind blown snow that was just magic to ride.

Once that was down I headed down to the bottom of Glacier Express and the groomed runs down were awesome. There was no ice or hard snow and you could leave a really nice trench from carving down the hill. It was probably some of the nicest groomed runs I have done for the season.

Back to the top I decided to go over to Secrete Bowl and down Cougar Chutes. Again the snow was really nice with a nice layer of wind blown sitting on top. From there I jumped back onto the groomed runs. Absolute Magic!

Another few more runs in other locations were just as good. You’ve got to love mid-week spring skiing. There is no-one around and really great skiing.

By the time I skied back to the bottom, the snow had softened up and was really nice, not slushy but still soft.

I just checked the temperature outside and it is 12 degrees, it won’t be long until everyone has their bikes out, although there is still a fair bit of snow in the valley.

Unfortunately I got up a little late and missed the sun, I was hoping that like yesterday the sun would come out and soften thing up a little.

The groomed runs were quite nice, especially up the top where you could get a nice edge, but lower down, around mid-mountain they were quite hard, not ice, but hard. Off pisted the snow was hard in most places and quite uncomftable to ski.

Looking at the weather forecast for the next few weeks, which is sure to change, it looks like things are going to warm up, so hopefully the sun will come out and we will have some good spring skiing.

Yesterday I had to go Vancouver, so I decided to the camera and get some shots of the area, seeing as though it was once of the first sunny days we have had for a while.

A clear spring day really brings out the beauty in this area, and you start to feel really lucky that you live here.

Here are some shots taken out of the car or on the side of the road.

So it’s starting to feel like spring in Whistler. The temperatures are staying relatively cold up on the top of the mountain but by the time you get down to the bottom of Big Red you can feel the sun starting to get a bit of some punch to it. The bottom of the hill, while it still has a lot of snow there are one or two places, such as the very bottom of Peak to Creek where you can start to see that the snow is getting a little thin and brown.

Over the last few days we have had quite a bit of precipitation and high winds. Unfortunately we have had relatively high freezing levels as well, so most of the precipitation was in the form if rain, except up the very top where we received quite a bit of snow.

We didn’t get up too early as we thought it was going to take a while for Patrol to open the Peak as it had not been opened for the least 2 days due to the bad weather. Unfortunately we were at the bottom of Red chair when the light board switch to saying that it was open. Once we got to the Peak there was a large line and shale slope was nearly tracked out. We got up the top and did to runs down Glacier Cirque, it was quite nice, not to deep, but at least it was fresh.

If you go up skiing at the moment and ski all the alpine bowls, keep and eye out for cornice and avalanche debris as it is every where, ranging in all sizes from a car to a small rock. There was even some big boulders of snow on the groomed run down the saddle that were looking pretty dangerous if you hit them, and there were quite a few.

After 2 runs on the Peak we decided that it was basically tracked out, so we thought that we would go give Million Dollar Ridge. The top was amazing, lighter and deeper than the peak, thanks to it being more protected from the wind. Unfortunately by about half way down it was terrible and we where skiing ice until we got to Big Timber. Oh well the top was worth it.

We decided to call it a day, as the only good snow was at the top and it was not worth doing any runs that went bellow the Peak.

The weather looks like it may be quite nice for the next couple of days, so hopefully we will get some nice sunny skiing days in.

With the first day of spring yesterday, and the warmer temps we’ve had lately, everyone has started to talk about getting there bikes out.

Although there is still way to much snow to go biking around Whistler Valley at the moment, I’ve heard that you can go down in Pemberton. An advertisement in the Pique Newspaper for Pemberton Bike Co, says that the trails are open, and another friend of mine has some friends that have started to shuttle the trail as well.

This is actually the best time to ride Pemberton, as the soil can be quite sandy so it drains really well and the ground being a little damp gives good traction. Snow on the surrounding mountains make for awesome views, and being cooler you can pump out a few more runs than you can in summer when it is super hot.

If you do decide to head to Pemberton to do some riding, and are going to be shuttling, take it easy on the road up to the top of Cream Puff from Mosquito Lake as it doesn’t take much for this road to become a wreck from erosion, and its already in a pretty bad way from previous biking seasons.

The opening dates for Whistler Bike Park have been posted up on the Whistler Bike Park Website. May 19 to October 8, 2007. There has been lots of talk about earlier opening dates on nsmb.com, some people saying as early as the last weekend in April, but unless we get a lot of rain until then I can’t see that happening, as there is still way too much snow.

Here is a small clip of a chute in the West Cirque area of Whistler Blackcomb.

Unfortunatly that day it was nice powder some turns and pretty hard some other. Still lots of fun though.

Today was one of the best days I have had for while.

Over the weekend we had awful weather, with rain to the top of the resort, or basically to the top anyway. Yesterday the temperature dropped and the rain turned to snow till about 3/4 of the way down the mountain. It snowed quite a lot, 17cm during the day and then another 10cm last night. None of the Alpine lifts opened yesterday so there was roughly 30cm of fresh snow in the Alpine.

We didn’t get up to early, we probably got to the Peak Chair line up at about 9.15 and we were still pretty close to the front of the line. The chair didn’t open till about 10.05am and we were on the 10th chair up, so as you can imagine the run down was amazing.

Whistler Bowl was deep and quite light. Whistler Blackcomb measure snow amounts at mid-mountain so there is usually a fair bit more snow up higher. Then I cut across and hit Surprise, which is hikers left or The Peak chair lift line, back down to the bottom of the Peak. Surprise was awesome, the only tracks that were on it was from ski patrol, and the snow was deep as there had been a lot of wind blown snow deposited on it as well. It was so good we decided to go do it again.

Looking around the rest of the Peak area there had been quite a lot of sliding during avalanche control. Runs like the Glacier Cirque and Couloir had a lot of cornice and avalanche debris in them.

We then got a call from one of our friends who had done one rundown Million Dollar Ridge and he described it as ‘all time’ so we decided to give it a go. If it was not for that call I would never have thought it would be any good as it is getting a little bit low, and as we have had high freezing levels thought that it would have had more rain than snow. But he was right it was amazing out there, and the best thing is no one was going out there, the must have been thinking the same thing as me before I got that call.

That being said at the very bottom of Million Dollar Ridge, just before you come out on Big Timber, the snow was getting a little thin, but who cares the rest was all time. We ended up doing it 3 times, and the last time was as good as the first, still no one out there.

What a day!

This is what we woke up to this morning, and it was still snowing. 16cm new snow, it was going to be a good day, or so we thought.

We were at the Gondola at 8:15 and it was snowing, unfortunately by the time we got to the top of the gondola it was raining. The snow that we had go was really wet. It was terrible.

We did 2 runs and decided that it was not worth it and head back down the hill, went for breakfast and then had a movie day.

What a disappointment.

Wow, What a day.

This was of the best days we have had for a while. We had another 14cm of snow last night, on top of the 17cm we had yesterday. This was not your typical Whistler snow, it was more like snow you get in the interior resorts, super dry, low density snow.

We got up the hill early to get as many fresh tracks as possible, and what with the Peak chair not opening yesterday, get in line to take advantage of the 30+ cm of new snow up there.

It was cold with blue skies in the morning and not that many people. After a couple of runs down to Red Chair, which were amazing, we decided to go and line up for the Peak. It took Patrol a while to open as the snow was not that stable and they were letting of a lot of slides, but once it was open it was as good as it gets.

There’s nothing like getting first tracks of the Peak Chair.

Anyways here’s some photos from today to make you a little jealous.