Only 10cm lastnight and snow all morning, but at least is something

Last night we saw a few cm of snow fall all the way to the village. Apparently there was about 15cm on the mountain

The skiing in Whistler is still so good. The snow base is still hovering around the 3 metre mark(Mid-mountain).

The past week it has been blue bird and nice and warm. The snows been soft but staying relatively fast. What more could you want at the end of the season.

Here is a photo from last Saturday for you to check out the conditions for yourself.

So it was the last day of Whistler Mountain being open today. Its seams crazy that this mountain is closing and we still have over a 3 metre base.

We went up for a ski, and the weather was not great, overcast, with quite a thick mid-mountain cloud. Never the less we had a really fun day doing lots of top to bottoms down to Creekside. Yep you can still ski all the way down to the village, no worries. The snow softened up nicely, but it did not go sticky, it stayed nice and fast so it was fun to rip around, off piste and on.

Over the next week they are actually calling for a bit of snow, quite high freezing levels, about 1500 metres I think, so we could have a few powder days riding Spanky’s and anywhere else that is up high.

Bring it on.

If you have been in Whistler for the last few days you would have thought we were back in the middle of winter. In the last 7 days we have received 64cm of new snow. On top of that it has been nice dry snow, not the wet stuff that you would expect at this time of the year.

Off piste there has been lost of powder to play in, and on piste the runs have a nice dusting of soft powdery snow on top. Along with the great snow there is hardly any one on the hill so there are no lift lines, which means the powder is lasting the whole day instead of being skied out in a couple of hours.

Its hard to believe that Whistler Mountain is closing this weekend, as there is so much snow, we still have a snow base of over 3 metres at mid-mountain. At least Blackcomb is staying open for a while longer.

Last Friday it snowed most of the day. In the village the snow was mostly wet but at least it was snow not rain.

On Saturday there was 22cm of new snow overnight, the freezing levels did ride a bit, but hey it is mid April so that allowed.

We got up the mountain nice and early and we were presently surprised that the weather was great, mostly blue skies with a little bit of cloud. First runs on the Peak we awesome, nice dry snow and quite deep. The lift line was quite large, but seeing as though it is the World Telus Ski and Snowboard Festival, they were not to bad, and moving quite quickly.

After a couple of runs the Peak was getting quite tracked out and due to the sun being quite warm the snow was getting a little wetter. It was time to head to the trees. We headed out to Million Dollar Ridge. Awesome! The snow was great down to the Big Timber ski out, but after that it was about as wet and heavy as you can get.

Sunday we up a little later as there was no new snow. You really had to pick your faces as the north east faces were very heavy and wet due to the sun, but the rest were still fairly dry, a little heavier than Saturday but still good.

I didn’t go up skiing today, but it has been snowing heavily all the way to the village all day. Hopefully it will continue into tonight so we get another powder day tomorrow.

Well I haven’t been up skiing since last Saturday, so I am not entirely sure of what the snow is like. The weather has not been that good, we have had a fair bit of rain on Sunday and Monday, which did end up tuning to snow up higher on the mountain, 8 cm I think. Its hard at this time of the season to go up skiing in anything less than perfect conditions.

The weather is looking quite promising for the next few days with relatively low freezing levels 800-1000 metres and a fair bit of precipitation. Whistler Alpine Forecast is calling for 15-25cm on Friday and 10-15cm on Saturday before drying out again on Sunday. Hopefully this snow does arrive, as it would be nice to get 1 or 2 more powder days in before the end of the season.

It took us a while to get out of the house today to go skiing. After hearing reports that yesterday was very busy we thought we would sleep in and then go up once the crowds had dispersed.

It has really felt like spring up here this week, Monday and Tuesday we’re nice and sunny while the rest of the week was overcast but still warm. It was 4 degrees on the Peak at 10:00am this morning and the temperature has not fallen bellow 0 degrees for a couple of days, and nights.

We walked out the door and by the time we got to the gondola we were already starting to sweet. We got to the gondola and were happy to see that there was no line up. Straight up to the Peak and every now and then you would get a warm breeze, a nice change to a blizzard ripping your face apart.

The snow was soft, but as long as you didn’t go of the main runs it was still quite fast. If you did go of the runs it was like hitting glue and you would nearly shoot over the front of your skis. We ended up doing a couple of runs down to Garbanzo and the snow was nice the hole way down. We then decided to go in the park for a few runs. Now is the best time to do park runs as the snows soft and slushy, which helps take the impact out of the landings.

The run back down to Creekside was pretty fun, we went down Franz’s and it was pretty smooth, soft and slushy. Good times.

The bottoms of the runs are now starting to get a little thin. If you look at Blackcomb from the village the run to the left of night pipe is not really skiable any more and the bottom of Peak to Creek is not really skiable either, but if you had to you could pick your way through it.

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.