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Whistler BlackcombSubmit a report
03/11/10 Hit the Blackcomb mother load on this trip….except for being pretty sick all three days….But the skiing! Started the trip with the easiest fast trips up on Wednesday afternoon – left Renton at 4:15, rolled into the Village at 8:45! A very auspicious start to the trip. Woke up on Thursday to 8” new with cold temps, but very strong winds up top, but we managed to find lots of nice tree runs off of Solar Coaster and Excellarator. No lift lines all day. Finished with a big 4k run down Bark Sandwich tree run to Gear Jammer bump run to a village with blasting music. Friday was even better 10+ new smoke, colder temps, more winds, but a puking amount of snow falling from 10:30 to 1pm….fill in the tracks kind of conditions and no one in any of the tree runs we did, easily pushing the knees with easy smoke. Made it out to Authors Choice for some nice pillow drop bumps through the trees…a lot better conditions than back in early Feb. Ended the day with another Bark Sandwich to Gear Jammer top to bottom run, gotta luv 4k end runs with at least half being bumps (with some nice tree gates). Was really questioning whether or not my sick body was going to be able to handle the expected Saturday crowds…but felt better so early start in broken filtered sky conditions. Lighter winds, still some nice cut up pow, but lots of very nice packed powder bumps and groomers. Crowd was bigger and earlier, lines at times (5 minute on 7th Heaven), one local indicated that the lift lines were pretty small for a Saturday in prime season (also heard the lines were big over on Whistler). Finally got a big run in today doing Saudan (Couloir Extreme) to Staircase. Entertaining entry to Saudan, some big wind lips with a few narrow ways to drop in. Finished the day as usual with the same old big run. I thought the coverage was pretty good in all the places we went, but someone indicated that normally there is a lot more snow pack at this time of the season. Good reasonable drive home. Thought about tomorrow at Crystal, but might need to take a day off (not to mention day light savings time). Great trip again, ready to go back soon. As WM would say, “If you don’t go now you’ll just be another year older next year” - or something like that). Sorry for all the verbiage in this report. ddk
02/05/10 This report is really only for Blackcomb, never made it over to Whistler. Report is for the 3rd through the 5th.
Aaahhhh, glad to be back up at Blackcomb, perfect timing! All the free parking lots are closed for the Olympics, everyone is staying away at this late date, so we had three great days of no lift lines at all, a little new snow on Wednesday and Thursday and even more cold smoke on Friday! Wednesday and Friday was a little variable on the vis, but Thursday was big blue ski and fairly cold temps with no winds! All in all a great trip. Did a couple of laps of Suadan on Wednesday, steep, nice careable packed powder, Thursday a little more new allowed for a few more laps, with a Pakalolo mixed in. Sadly the vis was to in and out on Friday to take the time to try, but the tree runs all around Blackcomb had great boot top new to suffer through. Good snow pack up high and very spring like snow at the base. Saw the Olympic torch arriving when we left on Friday. Manage to get my first 40k day at Blackcomb on Thursday, for a 100+ three day total. Only negative was getting back across the slow boarder. Ready to go back after the games are over….early March should be good. ddk
12/31/09 This report is actually for 12/28 – 12/31. Whistler had experienced the same lack of snow for a week that the Washington areas had experienced. The only difference is they didn’t get nearly the rain on the warm days, so the snow was firm, but very carvable fun. And, the base is great. 12/28 was mostly sunny and cold (15 – 20 at top) with no real wind. 12/29 started fairly clear, then started some light snow in the afternoon for maybe 1 inch new the next day. Also cold. 12/30 started overcast and cold and by noon was snowing pretty good. Again cold. 12/31 was overcast all day with 4 – 6 inches new which made for some real nice poking around. Today, 1/1 looked to have maybe 10 inches new on top. We had to return home, but heard from our friends it was awesome.
The big runs were the usual suspects. Sudan, Spanky’s, most of Glacier Express, Arthur’s Choice, and Jersey Cream Chairline all at Blackcomb. At Whistler, Harmony Bowl, (although McConkey’s was overly firm), Peak Chair, Red Chair, and one Peak to Creek high speed groomer for a 1 mile decent to Creekside to check out the downhill course and grab lunch at the base where the crowds were less. Speaking of crowds, it was a very nice surprise. We didn’t really wait in any lift lines with the exception of one 10 minute line on Eccelerator chair. For the most part, ski into a small line and on the chair in 30 seconds. It was really great. Lodges were pretty full for lunch, but if you got in before 11:30, no prob. I guess the threat of the Olympics is keeping people away. Or, it may just be the economy sucks and people can’t afford to go. By the way, the exchange rate right now is just about even, which was the only downside of the trip.
Village was quite fun on New Years Eve and the over abundance of police and mounties kept things nicely in control to where all had a good time including the kids. The New Years Eve party at Monk’s at the base of Blackcomb was great and no cover. Things got a bit crazy there and the short walk back to the condo with the midnight fireworks going off and a blue moon poking through the clouds was a nice touch to finish the trip.
118K for the 4 days. CD
12/1/09 Big sun and cold. Unreal amount of terrain open for this early in the season, with both the Harmony and 7th Heaven chairs open. Downloading still mandatory, but they're making a ton of snow right now, so I'd assume that it'll be top-to-bottom by Christmas.
Sunny spots (7th Heaven) were sublime, with great coverage, and looooong, choose-your-steepness runs to test early-season thighs. I missed the huge fresh dumpage, but having spring-like conditions on December 1st and hitting zero rocks was an absolute joy.
Oh, and the new sea-to-sky highway is a MASSIVE improvement. Watch for speed traps, because you really can haul ass now.
05/31/2009 WB last day of the season... continued spring snow with large bumps under peak, corn snow down west bowl, and pond skimming below the upper bump run on peak. Light crowd and great skiing. The end. RB
5/30/09 Xcelnt spr skiing on peak. West bowl and similar terrain. No buds.. Where's ddk and Vicky and kkz? One more day before nada.)
5/29/09 Did not ski today, but heading up to ski final wknd of season... hope to see ddk there, and may hunt for the remains of Vicky who I had to leave stranded on burnt-stew trail last sunday afternoon kicking her way out on a snowboard. My bad! Hopefully the bears left enough remains to identify! RB
05/25/09 Re-opening weekend report for Whistler Mountain – Awesome! Drove up early Sunday morning, nice way to go up, no traffic, easy boarder crossing, beautiful clear skies and big views. Since up loading to Whistler did not start till 9:45 I had a little time to relax and get ready for a big day. Up loading lift line was gone in a couple of minutes. Lots of mountain bikers and the trails looked great on the lower mountain – will have to try that some time this summer. Got up on to the mountain and found nice soft groomers for the first hour. Heard big things from the locals about skiing the mountain last week after being closed for a month. Peak opened around 11 and the bump frenzy was on…1300’ of the nicest softest go anywhere bumps – ouch! Spent the day doing the hamster laps of Peak chair with a run down to the bottom of Red chair every once in a while. Bumped into RB and Susan ( question where’s Kkz??? hhhmmm – getting ready for summer I suppose). Didn’t ski with them on Sunday, but did on Monday. Some rocks in places and the lower parts of Red and Emerald where getting brown, but the upper mountain is great. Harmony and the T-bars were not running, but the crowd was so small did not need them. Heard the cable was off the Harmony chair – major maintenance. Had to down load the gondola, though some of the snowboard crowd was doing the dirt down to the mid mountain load – where the mountain bike crowd was going crazy. Ended with 35k. Was expecting grey and clouds on Monday, but the morning and most of the day was big and blue again. Seemed a little warmer, but it never got to hot – just about perfect conditions. Same pattern as Sunday – with a lighter crowd. Had a great time doing more Peak laps – 7 ½ minute - love those freefall turn anywhere take any line bump runs. Ended the day with a long casual download ride looking at all the big views. Ended with 32k….and another big onion heaped hot dog at Zog’s – great way to prep up for the long drive home. Drive back was a little more crowded and the boarder crossing was a little slower, but all in all the new highway is going to make the drive a lot faster and easier. 67k ddk
05/17/09 This looks to be the last report of the season for Blackcomb. Drove up late Friday afternoon, some parts of the drive where okay, but it still ended up being a 6 hour slog from Renton. The Sea to Sky highway is getting closer to finished, pretty impressive and nice where its complete. Forecasts for Saturday where looking marginal, but it still ended up being a nice day. Total overcast, but warm temps, very nice smooth soft groomers first thing in the morning (10:30 since they are not uploading until 10am), a few sprinkles of precip passed through during the first couple of hours, but conditions and weather kept improving with sun breaks in the afternoon. Skiing was only on the upper mountain – Solar Coaster up - but everything on the upper mountain was open. Since it was the opening of the mountain bike park at the base, the ski crowd was pretty small, no lift lines all weekend. Skied Glacier, Excellarator, Jersey, Seventh and Solar. Bumps where soft, smooth and easy. Premier run was Suadan (Couloir Extreme), did it on both Saturday and Sunday. Finished Saturday downloading Excalibur. 30k ddk. Sunday was a whole lot nicer, broken clouds and sun from early morning, a lot softer snow, less perfect grooming, a few more people – but still no lift lines and total sun in the afternoon. Slower paced day. A lot warmer – Hawaii shirt nice. Only negative was a few chair problems - Jersey (which is a nice way to get from one side of the mountain to the other ) was having problems mid day and Excalibur during the download rush was stopping for extended times. But when we got to the bottom around 4pm the Village was humming – big crowds, lots of mountain bikes, lots of skin, lots of nice warm sun. Sat around for a hour eating a great dog with tons of onions – new way for us to end Whistler trips – outdoor resturant located on the north side of the Carlton lodge – gotta figure out its name. Conditions on Blackcomb were definitely melting out with more brown down low on the upper mountain. Heard some big bombs going off over at Whistler for opening day tomorrow. Coverage from a mile away looks good and very smooth – no bumps on Whistler Peak since its been unskied for a month. Whistler opens on the 19th and should be great for the next few weeks. Might have to go back next weekend since the forecasts are for more big sun. Finished day two at Blackcomb with 28k. All in all a great weekend. ddk
04/06/09 Second report of the season for Blackcomb/Whistler and conditions both snow quality and weather have greatly improved from CD’s December trip. Snow pack is still a lot lower than I have seen at this time of the year, but good snow accumulation during March and some small dumps during early last week plus cold conditions through last Friday made for a very very nice start to our long weekend. Weekend started cool and partly cloudy and progressively got warm and sunnier. Partly sunny early on Saturday, cold conditions, smoke powder still available, great grooming, light crowds made for a very nice first day at Blackcomb. Bounced around all over with some of the best being Saudan Couloir (Couloir Extreme), Secret Bowl second hand report from the lady amigos, Arthurs Choose (! fun ), 7th Heaven, most everything off of Glacier Express. And the day ended with a big 4k run down Gearjammer to a rocking village. 34k Sunday started with high filtered sun, but warmer conditions and a new adventure…..skiing Whistler via a trip up Blackcomb and then the very big Peak to Peak gondola - awesome trip. Conditions got sunnier and warmer as the day progressed. Started with easy poke around groomers, with lots of nice packed powder bumps pretty much everywhere (Whistler has better north facing exposure) and then escalated to big steep long pitches off of the Peak Chair – definitely one of the premier chairs in North America! All prime cold packed powder bumps in perfect Hawaii shirt conditions. Had a great hour and a half blur with CD (who definitely skied some big lines) after lunch that felt like it only lasted about 20 minutes – thanks a bunch. Most of the gang bailed in various directions around 2:30, some back via the Peak to Peak to Blackcomb and others down via Whistler to the village – that gave me time for a few more Peak runs before ending the day with another 4k decent into spring and the really big party in the Village. 34k Ah then Monday – the grand finally - totally blue bird skies, warmest start early of the weekend, absolutely no lift lines, perfect spring conditions up on Blackcomb. Stayed on the packed powder bump runs on the north facing slopes early and then eventually to the slush cup bumps on the high sun slopes. I really like being able to combine the two on bring vertical runs. Especially Suadan to the Bite (between Jersey and Glacier). 7th Heaven chair line was perfect easy soft slush bumps in the afternoon. Finished with another great and even softer Gearjammer run to another big party in the village. 32k. A great weekend with CD, LD, TD, cd, SP, CP, JP and SS. Thanks to all. Good quick drive home late Monday – left at 4:45 – no traffic problems on the way home or at the boarder. Ready to go again weekend after next. ddk
12/30/08 Whistler...the good, bad, and ugly. This report is for Dec. 28 - 30, 2008. The good: They're still two really great mountains for skiing. The bad: Way too many friggin' people. Wierd being in the largest ski area in North America and feeling claustrophobic because there are so many people. The ugly: Very thin coverage and many rock hits even on the groomers. Many of those groomers shouldn't have even been open, but then, they would have had problems pulling in the holiday crowds. The ethics of running a world-reknown ski area are a little funny. Now for the details. Started out on the 28th with an 80 cm base. It wasn't enough pretty much everywhere. The Washington ski areas are in a lot better shape. Pretty much stayed on the groomers on Jersey Cream at Blackcomb in the morning. Smaller lines as there were 20 minute lines on Solar Coaster and Excellerator. The groomed just past the top lodge was very rocky. After fighting the crowds for lunch, decided to take the Peak-2-Peak over to Whistler. More on this at the end. Once at Whistler, found better snow skiing the Red Express. Symphony Express, Harmony Express, and Peak chair all were closed and didn't even have chairs on the cable. Headed back to Blackcomb via P2P to finish the day with a somewhat unsatisfying 20K. 12/29 woke to some new snow and heavy snow flurries. Stayed on the Blackcomb side all day and with the new snow allowed some exploration off the groomers. Lots of fun stuff poking around skiers right of Jersey Cream chair, although the Couloir and Cougar shoots were unskiable due to no snow in key places. It was snowing so hard, tracks were filling in, so had quite a bit of fun in the morning on Jersey Cream and one exploration over to 7th Heaven only to find a half hour line (the chair status signs weren't quite accurate most of the time we were there). Spent the afternoon skiing Excellerator for some most excellent runs. Lots of rock hits all day, however. Ended a more satisfying day with 22K. 12/30 woke to a couple of new inches and broken clouds. Started the day on Jersey Cream, then headed over to 7th Heaven before the crowds hit. Too late, but the snow was great (still too thin, but by this time we were numb to the rock hits). After a couple of runs, poked our way down Glacier Express side. Saw a couple of crazy's trying to get through Couloir. After some runs, broke for lunch. While the big lunch break hit, headed back to 7th Heaven for several good runs, but it was very windy on top and with the cold temps, was pretty uncomfortable getting sand blasted. On one of the earlier runs up Glacier Express, checked out Pakalolo. Looked suprisingly good from afar. So, we took a risk and hit it coming back from the top of 7th Heaven. a couple of must make turns, and then nothing but sweet powder and no rocks...until the bottom. Definitely the run of the 3 days. Poked around King Arthurs off of the Crystal Chair (very dicey), then headed in with 22K. The crowds and long waits at lunch kept the vert down, and the lack of chairs open at Whistler was dissappointing. When we left on the morning of the 31st, they had picked up almost a foot of snow the night before bringing the base total to 120cm. I'd say they need 150cm before a lot more terrain will be open (safely). As for the Peak-2-Peak, it's a bit scarry. It stopped when we were about 300 feet above the ground. No known reason for the 5 minute stoppage. Lots of talk in the gondola car about being the next story on CNN. The wierd thing about it is, the cars just don't swing in the wind, the whole cable sways due to it's length. A little queezy. So, at the highest point, it's over 1000 feet above the valley floor. I've been wondering since how they evacuate the gondola if there should be a mechanical failure. I asked lots of random peaople at the ski areas and in the village and the general response is, good question. I'm curious enough, I'm going to shoot off some e-mails to the ski area to see if I get a response. Anyway, a good trip, but stay in Washington for another week or so and watch the base totals before heading up.
03/14/16/08 Finally a report from Whistler....Ah where to start, three days all at Blackcomb, Friday through Sunday, cold temps - 2 degrees colder each day in the morning, 14 this morning but it warmed up to varying degrees each day. Friday started with a dusting new and filtered sun for the first couple of hours then a pretty steady snow fall that dropped a couple of inches during the middle of the day. No lift lines, north facing slopes nice packed smooth powder, some of the sunny slopes firm smooth – worked fine with the steel skis – spent most of the day in a number of gladded tree runs off of Crystal Ridge, Excelerator and Solar Coaster. Got a lot of bump practice. Clearing trend at the end of the day led to big bright blue sky on Saturday, big views of all the mountains, also led to the weekend crowd showing up , compared to Friday, but still no real lift lines. With the big sun spent a lot of time on Glacier, which allowed access to Ruby Bowl and Suadan Couloir – aka Couloir Extreme, both great packed powder bumps and big dropping steep. Sadly some clouds moved in early afternoon, so had to suffer going back to the gladded tree runs…darn I hate that. Sunday started with filtered sun and repeating most of what I did on Saturday, plus a few more of the bump runs between Jersey and Glacier – Bite, Staircase, Blowdown. Sadly the big fog layer moved into the middle of the mountain so gladded tree runs became mandatory – darn again. Ended all three days with 4k runs to the base, though Sunday was pretty bullet proof on the bottom third. Other big news is the non stop construction on the highway from Horseshoe Bay all the way to Squamish…amazing and slow, long trip up and back. Great weekend at Blackcomb ready to go back. 101k ddk
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