Liz and I signed up for another 2-day Extremely Canadian clinic. After a warmup run to the Emerald chair, the 21 weekend clients were grouped after being observed skiing the cut up new snow on Rat Fink. It was no surprise there were lots of people this weekend. Whistler had 16 inches snow in the past 48 hours, plus the Peak and Harmony chairs had not been open Friday. Liz is pointing at the still pristine Peak and about 9AM.
Note in the morning we also have some nice weather along with the powder. View of Blackcomb from Whistler:
I was with ski guide Ace McKee and Corey from Santa Monica and Connor from Seattle. We took our first two runs in the Harmony Horseshoes. This shows the guide how well we can handle a small cornice drop in over a bowl without any fall consequences and a short convex rollover. Naturally these were primo powder runs lower down. We also had Hugo and Ian from Vancouver for those two runs, and an apprentice tail guide Matty, which Extremely Canadian likes to have with more than 4 clients in a group. After these two runs Hugo, Ian and Matty moved to Liz’ group with lead guide Darryl.
The main issue with Harmony was this lift line.
While we had a ski school cut line, Ace thought it still took awhile so we never went back there after lunch. We had a nice powder run in Glacier Bowl to the T-bar on the way to lunch. Lunch was a 10 minute check-in with the other groups to see if we needed to add anyone. With the crowds and the powder we all agreed we needed to get back out there fast.
Our first run after lunch was Whistler Bowl to Shale Slope. With powder over moguls up top this gave Ace an opportunity to observe us and make suggestions to clean up our weight distribution and hand positioning.
So next we stepped it up to explore some of Whistler’s exciting but hard-to-navigate Peak runs. We combined with Steve Clarke’s group to ski Cirque, which has this narrow twisting entry.
The sideslip can get rutted out by snowboarders but was straightforward this day with all the new snow.
One of the tail guides took a more sporting route with a couple of airs, about to launch the second one here:
Next lap was to Cockalorum. Ace leaning over the edge there:
Overcast and some flat light had moved in by then.
The next two runs were to West Cirque, an area I had never skied before due to navigation difficulty from above. The light cleared again during our second run there so I got this overview of our route from below.
The blue line was the second run all the way down the bowl, diverting up high to Ace-in-the-Hole chute.
Due to flat light we diverted skier’s left out of the picture on the first run to Christmas Tree.
This had some deep powder along with the better visibility.
We didn’t quite make a last chair on the Peak, which closed at 3:15 vs. the 3:30 Ace was anticipating. Nonetheless this was an awesome ski day, 23,400 vertical on great terrain with about 7K of powder. Days like this, especially on a weekend, are what keep me coming back to Extremely Canadian.
Note in the morning we also have some nice weather along with the powder. View of Blackcomb from Whistler:
I was with ski guide Ace McKee and Corey from Santa Monica and Connor from Seattle. We took our first two runs in the Harmony Horseshoes. This shows the guide how well we can handle a small cornice drop in over a bowl without any fall consequences and a short convex rollover. Naturally these were primo powder runs lower down. We also had Hugo and Ian from Vancouver for those two runs, and an apprentice tail guide Matty, which Extremely Canadian likes to have with more than 4 clients in a group. After these two runs Hugo, Ian and Matty moved to Liz’ group with lead guide Darryl.
The main issue with Harmony was this lift line.
While we had a ski school cut line, Ace thought it still took awhile so we never went back there after lunch. We had a nice powder run in Glacier Bowl to the T-bar on the way to lunch. Lunch was a 10 minute check-in with the other groups to see if we needed to add anyone. With the crowds and the powder we all agreed we needed to get back out there fast.
Our first run after lunch was Whistler Bowl to Shale Slope. With powder over moguls up top this gave Ace an opportunity to observe us and make suggestions to clean up our weight distribution and hand positioning.
So next we stepped it up to explore some of Whistler’s exciting but hard-to-navigate Peak runs. We combined with Steve Clarke’s group to ski Cirque, which has this narrow twisting entry.
The sideslip can get rutted out by snowboarders but was straightforward this day with all the new snow.
One of the tail guides took a more sporting route with a couple of airs, about to launch the second one here:
Next lap was to Cockalorum. Ace leaning over the edge there:
Overcast and some flat light had moved in by then.
The next two runs were to West Cirque, an area I had never skied before due to navigation difficulty from above. The light cleared again during our second run there so I got this overview of our route from below.
The blue line was the second run all the way down the bowl, diverting up high to Ace-in-the-Hole chute.
Due to flat light we diverted skier’s left out of the picture on the first run to Christmas Tree.
This had some deep powder along with the better visibility.
We didn’t quite make a last chair on the Peak, which closed at 3:15 vs. the 3:30 Ace was anticipating. Nonetheless this was an awesome ski day, 23,400 vertical on great terrain with about 7K of powder. Days like this, especially on a weekend, are what keep me coming back to Extremely Canadian.