Last Saturday I finally decided that the Whistler dirt jumps have had enough time to dry out.

I rode into the village and checked out some of the happenings going on due to the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival.

After that, I rode over to the jumps, and they looked like they were in relatively good condition, seeing as though they have been buried under snow for the last 6 months. After riding them I decided that they were actually pretty good, sure there were a few rough sections, but over all really good.

On Monday I headed back up to the jumps to have another little rip, and to my surprise the maintenance crew were there re-shaping and fixing them up. So no riding today. I asked one of the guys who was working on them how long they were going to be working on them and he gave me the answer, “two weeks, but you should be able to ride most of them by the weekend”.

The re-shaping that they had done looked pretty good, and they had even mixed the dirt with a small amount of concrete to harden them right up, which should help them last a bit longer.

So no more jumps until the weekend, but it should be great after that.

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.

This is a small video I took while waiting for the Peak Chair to open last Saturday.

There was 22cm of fresh snow overnight, and Patrol was being very cautious and bombed just about everything. I counted at least 5 bombs on the ridge above Excitation. This was the last one to go off.

Check it out.

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.

Yesterday I went for my first ride of the season in Pemberton. We parked at the gravel pit and rode up to Overnight Sensation. I usually do shuttles, but as it is the beginning of the season and the need to get fit we decided to ride up. It nearly killed me, but once you get tot the top you forget how hard the ride up was.

The trails in Pemberton are in prime condition at the moment. On the ride up the only snow I saw was at the turn of to Overnight, so I guess if you went on to do Cop Killer, and most defiantly Gravitron, then there might still be snow on the trails, but with how warm it was down there I don’t think it will be long before they are too clear of snow.

As for Overnight sensation, I don’t think the conditions could have been better. The trail is completely dry, so dry that any drier it would be dusty. After that we hit up Blood, Sweet and Fear, and as you can guess it was in perfect condition as well.

By the time we got back to the gravel pit there were a lot of cars and people shuttling, so I’m guessing a lot of the more popular trails, such as Cream Puff, are getting a beating now. This Saturday is a trail maintenance day in Pemby so if you can get down and help out then you should meet at The Pemberton Bike Co parking lot at 8:00 am. Don’t forget to take tools if you have them.

On Monday a few of us had heard that the mountain bike trail, Trash, down in Function Junction, was clear of snow so we thought we would give is a go.

We road down to Function, taking the trail that goes from the bottom of Spring Creek road to Function. There were a couple of snow patches that we had to get of and push over, but mostly it was clear, and where is was clear was also fairly dry with only the occasional mud patch.

Once we got to Trash we road to the other end of it and started on the trail. The first section where you ride up the hill was clear, but after a small way along further there was a fair bit of snow on the trail, so we had to push. We actually had to push and till you start to head down towards the river, but then it cleared up and was clear right up until the last section. We actually rode back out to the rubbish dump on a side road instead of doing the last part of the trail, as there was a bit too much snow.

After the ride we spoke to the person that had told us it was clear, and he said that it was Train Wreck that was clear not trash. Still it was still a good ride, another week and I’m pretty sure it will al be clear.

Bring on summer.

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.

I can’t believe how much snow as melted this week. The valley is quickly becoming clear of snow, although there are still places where there is quite a bit. We have had relatively warm weather here for the last week, and it was still about 15 degrees outside at about 7 pm last night.

Tom Pro has finally updates the Whistler Bike Park website with his report on when the bike parks going to be open and other plans for the season. http://www.whistlerbike.com/information/updates/april7_07.htm

Basically he goes on to say that although the snow is melting fast down the bottom there is still a lot of snow at the top of the Fitz chair. Here is a photo I took yesterday.

So it’s still over a month away until they get it open, and I bet that there will still be a fair bit of snow like there was last year. O’well, better late than never.

In the mean time the trails in Pemberton are good to go and in really good condition. Although I have not been down to Squamish yet I also here that it is good condition, and that you can ride from the top of 19th hole.

Keep your fingers crossed for warm weather so that the snow melts and the trails dry out.

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.