Whistler Stoke and Conditions - 2010/11

[Schemeboat]

also - you could (and probably still can) hear phalanx releasing... Vis was dicey, so couldn't see any naturals.

[Graham]

Yesterday = classic 7th reservoir trees with a few stout maggots, hopping pillows, surprisingly good coverage.

Nice to meet you and Wren, those hot laps were freaking fun man! Mike on the megawatts has some decent footage from his gopro, I'll fire you a link when he puts an edit together.

[nickel]

Anyone chance West Cirque over the crown? I backed off once I saw the sign. Didn't want to find out what it meant on the way down, though the wack of snowboarder scrapes could've meant a soft Oz landing (with deepest respect to the Deeper crowd, of course).

Yes, and it's pretty nasty. We stayed away from the high entrances and were quite glad to have done so. Basically the crown is just below the skier's right rock band on entry, right where it starts to open up. It looks somewhere between 2-3 feet, slid right to the nasty november layer in the release area, and subsequently dragged a large section down to rock (200 ft into the cirque, sort of between the first rock pillar skiers left and the far skier's right divider ridge).

[ROCKS]

Yes, and it's pretty nasty. We stayed away from the high entrances and were quite glad to have done so. Basically the crown is just below the skier's right rock band on entry, right where it starts to open up. It looks somewhere between 2-3 feet, slid right to the nasty november layer in the release area, and subsequently dragged a large section down to rock (200 ft into the cirque, sort of between the first rock pillar skiers left and the far skier's right divider ridge).

Eeeeesh, sounds dicey. Glad I stuck to bcomb this weekend.

Looks like there should be some good snowfall this week though, lets hope forecasts hold up, and the white stuff keeps coming.

highlights for me this weekend?

Lower skier's left in Fraggle
Ridge Runner trees
Ziggy's and randomness off 7th
Sunday's mank

[powder11]

Went up this am for an alpine recon mission. According to patrol, the alpine is pure survival and may not open today. Bombing produced limited results on a still sketchy snowpack, so it's going to be interesting how this all susses out.

Everything else that opened yesterday is now frozen solid. Areas that were not skied have a nasty hard, yet breakable crust with semi frozen schmoo underneath. Almost impossible to make turns. The couple of groomers I hit were in great shape, so break out the carving boards for now.

[Maximus Farcisimus]

Went up this am for an alpine recon mission. According to patrol, the alpine is pure survival and may not open today. Bombing produced limited results on a still sketchy snowpack, so it's going to be interesting how this all susses out.

Everything else that opened yesterday is now frozen solid. Areas that were not skied have a nasty hard, yet breakable crust with semi frozen schmoo underneath. Almost impossible to make turns. The couple of groomers I hit were in great shape, so break out the carving boards for now.

I also went for Alpine Recon.

Somewhere between 1900 and 2000m( tower 10-11 Harmony or just below the 1st flat section of the saddle) there is a horrible crust, above that was some pure sickness.

Excitation and 7 laps through Glacier Cirque(4 laps to myself....WTF) and Glacier Coulior on an empty Peak chair. Pow turns on the first half and packed pow on the second half.Mellow surface slabs that didn't run.

Big thanks to Patrol for scaring people off


Sure it was fuckin' horrible once you got just below the first flat section of The Saddle but the top was great on the todays swallow

[curtisbb]

[todug27]

good stuff curtis

[halcyon]

Curtis, bringin' the stoke! Nice footage.

[filthyfrenchbum]

Best day of the season? I think so. Untracked all day and nobody to show for it. Started with laps of Solar trees, hit cancer man, lined up for 7th, one lap there, false face, bushrat, 5-0, then cirque, couloir, and christmas trees.

I'll be working in the village square liquor store in 15min, ask for change

[powder11]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

Scored 1st chair up Peak chair and blasted 2 quick laps down the front. Nobody there really so it was fresh track all the way. Skied west cirque to christmas and had the run of my life. Blower pow top to bottom. Kept going to the right through Christmas trees and it just kept opening up for me into nice tight little chutes of glorious deep pow.

It was so good, I went for another lap because nobody was dropping into the top entrance of west cirque and I knew it was still going to be really deep in Christmas. However, west cirque steps down a bit where the crown is from the slide last week to where it is just blower on rocks. No big deal the previous run, but this run it was a bit more cut up and the shark fins started poking up everywhere. I tagged one hard and it ripped the toe peice out of the ski! I did the one ski wiggle to hard hip check at speed and somehow stopped without tomahawking to the bottom. The ski did rocket to the bottom by doom/gloom. I was able to find the ski and tow peice was still dangling by one screw. I had to pretty much one ski it down from near the top of west cirque all the way down to red chair. My legs are killing me! I never realized how hard it would be to get out of the alpine without functioning gear.

Aside from that scare, it was a pretty fucking awesome epic day!

[t.odd]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

Scored 1st chair up Peak chair and blasted 2 quick laps down the front. Nobody there really so it was fresh track all the way. Skied west cirque to christmas and had the run of my life. Blower pow top to bottom. Kept going to the right through Christmas trees and it just kept opening up for me into nice tight little chutes of glorious deep pow.

It was so good, I went for another lap because nobody was dropping into the top entrance of west cirque and I knew it was still going to be really deep in Christmas. However, west cirque steps down a bit where the crown is from the slide last week to where it is just blower on rocks. No big deal the previous run, but this run it was a bit more cut up and the shark fins started poking up everywhere. I tagged one hard and it ripped the toe peice out of the ski! I did the one ski wiggle to hard hip check at speed and somehow stopped without tomahawking to the bottom. The ski did rocket to the bottom by doom/gloom. I was able to find the ski and tow peice was still dangling by one screw. I had to pretty much one ski it down from near the top of west cirque all the way down to red chair. My legs are killing me! I never realized how hard it would be to get out of the alpine without functioning gear.

Aside from that scare, it was a pretty fucking awesome epic day!

holy shit, toby! sounds like we were on the same program, although I didn't have mechanicals! glad you made it out......those were some really good frontside laps too, saw you leading the charge down whistler bowl, way out in front!

[D(C)]

Interesting article in The Pique: http://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/piq...=WB+open+house

Sounds like future plans could include expansion into Khyber, replacement of Harmony by a 6- or 8-pack, and replacement of Crystal by a high speed quad.

[Shaggy]

6 or 8 pack chair to replace Harmony? Great idea, because double the people per hour hitting the terrain in that area will definitely make the experience better.

The groomer down to the horseshoes would become the world's most epic gong show.

[shirk]

Khyber Pass is already a mogul field. This will just shorted the time hours to minutes before it's shredded.

[powder11]

what a bunch of morans! developing Khyber? yeah, develop terrain that is already super easy to access and is in constant freezing level fluctuation.

How about removing all alpine lifts and make people hike for their turns? Think of the money they could save as well as look like environmental heroes. It's not like people would stop skiing whistler.

If they truly want to increase revenue, then they need to focus on their core demographic, aging baby boomers, who want to see nothing more than top notch grooming on existing terrain. The ski bums will do whatever they have to do to access the goods.

[nickel]

It will be a sad day indeed when the cancer man project rears it's ugly head again... sounds like it may not be as far off as I'd hoped. Really the only thing keeping crystal from being even more awesome is that we can't feed thousands of people an hour to the top of it.

No more please! any future expansion or new terrain should be accessed only by ridiculously scary t-bar. Call up poma or whoever is still making t-bars, get the numbers for the steepest place you can put the thing and do that. cheap, easy and awesome.

Up body bag, near where the old yurt used to be to the col between disease and blackcomb, would be a good start.

end rant

[Axman]

Today was sick.

I'm back in Whistler for my first full season in quite a while. Got in a week and a half ago. Already got reconnected with some old friends, and made some new ones.

Been an incredible snow year already and today was a surprisingly good day. I was about 8th in line for Spanky's and got two sweet laps in.

Heckling the other people going by while we were waiting was awesome.

Anyway--- here's a video I put together for the Whistler blog my wife and I have going. It's geared more toward our flatland friends and family who don't know squat about skiing, but it's got a couple decent lines in it. I'll ski a lot faster when my legs get back in shape. ;-)

If you think it's lame, post something better!

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WjSTHH7zTU"]YouTube - Whistler Early Season 2010[/nomedia]

[point it]

they are thinking way too small.... they should make a peak to peak to peak gondola and encorporate either rainbow or fitz into the equation

[xyz]

The ski bums will do whatever they have to do to access the goods.

ain't that the truth.

[Schemeboat]

they are thinking way too small.... they should make a peak to peak to peak gondola and encorporate either rainbow or fitz into the equation

magic carpet to decker

[filthyfrenchbum]

Khyber expansion sounds stupid but the wind turbines do sound like a worthwhile investment. Crystal, as much as an expansion would suck for us, does have potential though, if you think about getting back up to the alpine without going to excelerator, and accessing that whole side of the mountain. Not that I'm for it, but I do see where they are coming from...

PS, be careful inbounds, 7th and Glacier stopped spinning for a while this morning because of a slide in Shredder (Ruby area), apparently a patroller went for a ride but was ok.

[nickel]

khyber expansion sounds stupid but the wind turbines do sound like a worthwhile investment. Crystal, as much as an expansion would suck for us, does have potential though, if you think about getting back up to the alpine without going to excelerator, and accessing that whole side of the mountain. Not that I'm for it, but I do see where they are coming from...

Really? I can understand why they want to replace crystal, I still think it's a horrible idea, stripping the area of that 'secluded' feeling that is sort of lacking here for the tourist type. In the end it's just a bad idea, more people with zero new terrain =

As far as the khybers expansion, I think it sort of depends where the lift gets put... right now there's a whole section of khybers no one goes because it benches out at the bottom with nowhere to go. Also, it would/could provide access up from the function end of town, making the cheakamus crossing residents pretty stoked, and leaving blackcomb even more devoid of vancouverites. I'm all for it, khybers is already a highway. If it went to the valley at that end, cakehole could be the new spankys!

[t.odd]

as much as I understand the marketing appeal of opening 'new' terrain....I think they'd be a lot better served to get a decent summer glading/thinning program going for existing in bounds terrain....

[powder11]

cakehole could be the new spankys!

They would have to hire double the patrol just to fish people off the cliffs who missed the line! I don't see expanding into south facing, low elevation terrain for the sake of a bunch of locals holed up in function being a sound business decision. To increase the tourist exp, I would think they would want to expand into the Alpine, but I am against that for obvious reasons.

W/B should focus on polishing up what they currently have and quit being so fucking tight with hiring and hours for employees before they think about building out new terrain, but I think there is some agreement with the province about being able to build more timeshare condos if they open up more ski terrain.