Whistler 23-24

[Cocximus]

Founders club app has exact opening countdowns.

[Toadman]

There are so many factors that affect when the avalanche control is finished and when the high alpine chairs open. It’s essentially impossible to know without having inside beta. You can get a good idea if you have a radio tuned in to the Whis or Bcomb ops channels.

Crucial lift maintenance guy calls in sick? Delay.
Bluebird visibility? Faster.
Strong avalanche control teams with lots of experience working that day? Faster.
Still blowing 80+ in the alpine when the sun comes up? Delay.
Gondola upload from the valley for patrol staff delayed by some minor maintenance issue on a gondola or a lift that you’d never hear about unless you work there? Delay.

I could go on like this for pages.

Any speculation you see on any social media about why/when lifts open is almost certainly wrong. In the end you can be sure that the plan is to open everything every day.

Don't forget this one - Avy dog, Fido is having stomach issues from the piece of food scrap he snatched outside the Horstman Hut. Delay.

[paulster2626]

It’s essentially impossible to know without having inside beta. You can get a good idea if you have a radio tuned in to the Whis or Bcomb ops channels.

So at Nascar events you can rent earphones and just type in the number of the car who's crew and driver radio you want to listen to. It's super cool. Someone should start a business renting similar products that can fit inside a ski helmet for resort powder days.

Skied at Snowmass with a mag whipski a couple times. Once there was 8-12" new snow and we were with his ex-patroller friends who either had patrol on phone speed dial or a radio or maybe both. Because of this we were able to hit each zone just as it opened with surgeon-like precision; it was one of my favourite days. Extremely Canadian teachers do similar things as well, with the added bonus of lift line priority. Living The Dream.

[LeeLau]

Today was bluebird. -1 @ valley. -8 @ top of Glacier Chair. Winds were close to nil. 2cms of snow with the surface facetting out. -10 @ Circle Lake in the Blackcomb backcountry. - 12 @ Decker Lake but felt colder due to glacier outflow winds.

Height of snow past 320cms probe length on bergschrund of Blackcomb Glacier measured at windscoop. N, SE, E, SW all skied well with inconsequential solar effect. Ski pen approx 10 - 15cms on all aspects. Coverage is still subpar below 1800m

Note that Showcase TBar still isn't open. My guess it's going to need another storm cycle or two to open based on attempts to build a cat road and the relative lack of snow. This means Blackcomb Glacier is accessible only via boot pack or skins

[The AD]

Okay, I've never seen a crevasse there before.

Also I just noticed the HIGH temp in the alpine is supposed to be -25 on Friday!

[gramboh]

Thanks for the obvs Lee

[Maximus Farcisimus]

Spent the day doing laps in the cakehole. Putting in the skinner watched Whistler SAR pull someone out who had the pleasure of spending the night out. Good reminder, don’t unwittingly follow tracks-gets tight, cliffs out, and it’s deep and Unconsolidated. After they pulled this person/persons out it was over to Blkcmb to search for someone else below 7th




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[Maximus Farcisimus]

Inbounds avalanche fatality in Tahoe yesterday. Damn, not what ya would expect
RIP

[nortonwhis]

Spent the day doing laps in the cakehole. Putting in the skinner watched Whistler SAR pull someone out who had the pleasure of spending the night out. Good reminder, don’t unwittingly follow tracks-gets tight, cliffs out, and it’s deep and Unconsolidated. After they pulled this person/persons out it was over to Blkcmb to search for someone else below 7th

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Damn, lucky that didnt happen today/yesterday with that arctic air moving in.

[LeeLau]

The heli was flying yesterday for helibombing on Phalanx (probably off the Poop Chutes approach) which was fortunate for the SAR tasking

[2Pole]

Cool photo!

[2Pole]

RIP Vibes...

[gramboh]

Damn, lucky that didnt happen today/yesterday with that arctic air moving in.

Sounds like there was a rescue last night for a duo in Fitz Creek who somehow got below Singing Pass? North Shore SAR instagram has some details, they came up to help as they have night hoist capabilities, I think they also help with that group that got into some weird snowfield on SW part of Fissile a few years back too.

Hope those guys kept their feet! Insanely cold day/night to fall in a creek.

[Maximus Farcisimus]

They shut the mountain down today?

Closed again tomorrow?

LOL




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[gramboh]

-53 windchill at peak yesterday. Surely some worksafeBC rules abput workers being out in that, and the risk to skiers if a lift stops. Today warmer but some gong show stuff, Roundhouse closed due to maintenance issue, pipe burst maybe?

[The AD]

Inversion now. -13 at the peak but -20 at the base.

I can certainly understand closing most of the mountains yesterday. Probably a no-win scenario for WB. If they close entirely people will bitch, if they just open a couple lifts (like they did) people will also bitch.

[DanoT]

-53 windchill at peak yesterday. Surely some worksafeBC rules abput workers being out in that, and the risk to skiers if a lift stops. Today warmer but some gong show stuff, Roundhouse closed due to maintenance issue, pipe burst maybe?

Most, if not all the resorts in Alberta and the B.C. Interior will shut down a lift if the wind chill at the lift gets to -30*C or colder, The last couple of days Castle, Whitewater, Banff Sunshine and possible a few others shut down all lifts, the rest only had a few lower mountain lifts running.

[Huskier]

At the risk of incurring the wrath of the hordes tomorrow, I think the forecast scared quite a few people out of riding today. Pretty much ski-on glacier chair, 5 minutes max on 7th. As long as you didn't go below like 1500m temps weren't all that bad.

[gramboh]

Saturday turned out to be a great day out as it warmed up in the alpine with zero wind and no lines. Still some soft pockets to find around Peak although reverse winds on Thurs/Fri messed some slopes up.

[nortonwhis]

Rode inbounds(ish) pow basically all weekend. Not full top to bottom lines but very enjoyable. Still a lot left behind in the Double Rubble/ surfs up area too.
I also think closing was the right idea. If you had to do rope rescues from a busted chair it would be a bad time for everyone...

[paige.]

Yeah Castle Mountain deals with enough of these closures that they have a detailed Cold Weather Policy on their website: https://www.skicastle.ca/extremeweather/ . Sounds pretty reasonable to me: -25C close chairs if it's windy, -30C close chairs regardless of wind, -35C close everything. Obviously the gondolas at Whistler add an extra dynamic to consider (still need a time-intensive evacuation, but enclosed from the wind and should stay warmer) but they seem to follow a similar plan.

[nortonwhis]

Models have been all over the place this year. Tomorrow uncertain. Friday NAM calling for snow but not many others. WTF. How am i supposed to ditch work early if they cant figure their shit out.

[The AD]

I was just reading that it's unlikely the Showcase t-bar will open at all this season. Apparently with the low snow year coupled with general shrinking of the glacier, the towers are too high to get enough extension on the t-bars. Although with Lee's recent photo showing an open crevasse near the top of the Blackcomb Glacier it didn't look like it would be opening anytime soon, anyway. I guess that means not many tracks back there. Is the easiest way in traversing over from the top of Seventh?

[phatty]

I was just reading that it's unlikely the Showcase t-bar will open at all this season. Apparently with the low snow year coupled with general shrinking of the glacier, the towers are too high to get enough extension on the t-bars. Although with Lee's recent photo showing an open crevasse near the top of the Blackcomb Glacier it didn't look like it would be opening anytime soon, anyway. I guess that means not many tracks back there. Is the easiest way in traversing over from the top of Seventh?

Man, that would suck. Losing the Horstman Tbar has already wrecked the flow of Blackcomb. Losing Showcase and access to the glacier would be brutal. Once it closes for long, Vail will probably shut it down for good.

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[The AD]

Yeah, it seems to me the solution might be to put in a chairlift where the Horstman t-bar used to be, but have the top terminal higher on the ridge. Then the Showcase t-bar could be removed and access to the top of Blackcomb Glacier would be via the new chair.