Snow Much Fun

The snow is back!!! I had faith it would return and it’s back with a vengeance. Whistler was having the worst season in about 20 years, even the BBC pointed out last week that some Scottish resorts have more snow than here in Whistler… but not anymore! In the last 7 days we’ve had over 140cm of snow fall and it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon.

Like the last time we had a lot of snow, my days off fell at the perfect time. For my first day off we had about 15cm of pow then the second we had 35cm! Like everyone else I got up for the first lift at 8.15 so there were big queues which weren’t moving due to waiting on avalanche clearance. Well worth the wait though, even the main groomed runs still had great snow on them and we found good stashes of powder. I had so much fun going down some of the bowls and tree runs. Boarding from 8.30-3 both days killed me off – definitely the most tired I’ve been. The snow hasn’t stopped since then and I now have two days off again to enjoy even better powder!

Snow Gods, Fresh Powder & Whistler Fame…

The snow (proper snow) has finally arrived in Whistler. After a slow start to the season for snowfall, the last week saw over 90cm of snow fall! We were forecasted to receive 20cm on Friday night, which for the season we are having would have been great, instead we got 49 whole cm’s overnight with the snow still falling heavily on throughout Saturday. Luckily I had the weekend off, which is a rare occasion in Whistler as weekends are the busiest time for my work, to do a Women’s Snowboard Camp here.

I was like a very excitable 5 year old at Christmas to go out and play in the fresh powder (for once!). Even better that I was on a 2 day training camp so it was the perfect opportunity to learn how to snowboard in proper snow :-). The Arc’teryx womens camp was good fun and think I’ve finally managed to get there with snowboarding! The good snow conditions made it much easier for me to turn down a lot steeper runs than I have been doing. I did my first tree run, first black run and we even hit the park at the end of the day on Sunday… haven’t quite mastered jumping yet! Although I did get the tiniest bit of air on a ‘jump’ yesterday and I didn’t fall – that’s progress right there 🙂

Good day to have lift line priority!

Fresh pow in the trees

Opening Weekend At Whistler Blackcomb 2013

Whistler Blackcomb opened for the season on Saturday, two weeks earlier than expected. Luckily I wasn’t scheduled to work on Saturday so I could go snowboarding for the first time in two years woo (Kyle wasn’t so lucky and had to work). So exciting to hear opening was sooner than we had all expected, although I wasn’t quite as keen to get up there as the people who had queued 24 hours to make sure they were first up the mountain.

I wasn’t expecting too much of the conditions as had heard it was pretty icy and not that much snow up at the top, plus only a couple of lifts and runs were open…how wrong I was! There was quite a bit of snow overnight and the sun was shining, what could be better than powder and a bluebird day for the opening day of the season?!

The conditions were great… my snowboarding not so good! After two years of not getting on a board and only having done a week anyway it was safe to say I was a little rusty. Nevertheless it was so good to be on the mountain, despite all the falls and many bruises! Roll on the rest of the season 🙂

I had to work on Sunday and had my first shift as a Ticket Validator at Creekside Gondola (where most of the locals live) so no snowboarding for me. A pretty easy job and it was quiet for most of the day, apart from a few keen people queuing from 7.30 to hit the pow. It snowed pretty much the whole day so was pretty jealous of all the people I was letting up the mountain, better get used to it I guess!