Glad you had fun, Tony. We're just finished with our ski week here, on the mountains Monday-Saturday. Six wonderful days. A great week during a remarkably snow-deprived year. I peeked at the Harmony Horseshoes on our first day (#6 was my first double-diamond, in February) and almost dropped into #6 but didn't quite dare. Instead I slipped and slid down a ledge into the double-diamond "McConkey's to Low Roll" that's just a smidge farther down the ridge run. Very hairy, and I had no desire to return, though I survived intact and right-side up.
Yesterday and today (and even day before yesterday?) I most hung out lower, mostly on upper Dave Murray Downhill and Tokum. Both were totally closed when we were last here, in Jan/Feb. This time, Tokum was mostly "out of bounds", but others had skied it. The snow was terrific, if you can handle deep and heavy and a lot of unbroken. I was more comfy following the tracks of others until today, when I mostly sought out new lines. (I don't know if my technique got better or if the snow did.) Great fun, though high-energy skiing -- at least the way I do it! Yesterday I bashed a few unseen rocks on Tokum, but the minor base and edge damage (a) will vanish with a standard tune and (b) was worth it for the hoots! Early this afternoon (sat.) they changed Tokum from "out of bounds" to "warning: unmarked rocks and obstacles", though that still didn't exactly draw the crowds. (Last run, I was with a group of 4, which was the largest crowd I'd shared it with all day!) And virtually all of the unmarked rocks had actually been covered up pretty well by last night's and today's snowfall, so it's a funny sign. Not easy skiing, though -- especially because Tokum is officially a blue run!
My hairiest moment came when I decided to try out Bear Paw, a single-diamond closed run near Tokum. The bottom looked pretty bare, and others had warned me that it was in bad shape, but the folks at the bottom looked happy enough, and described it only as "a challenge", so I decided to give it a go. It was mostly "a challenge" until I came to a place where the run narrows down and descends into a valley where it looks like you need speed. (I already knew from skiing this run many times that you actually DON'T need speed there.) As it happened, the only tracks through the concrete led straight down, so I picked up quite a bit of speed. Just as I was approaching the point of maximum speed, I suddenly noticed that I was heading for a ~4'-wide open creek that crossed the whole run! (I don't do creeks, and I don't do air, at least not on purpose!)
I'm not exactly sure what I did, but I'm sure I jumped, and I'm sure I panicked! Good news is that I made it across the creek. Bad news is that I "blew up real good" on the other side. Lost one ski (right next to me, on the slick, skied "trail") and slammed down on my back, head to the compacted snow. No stars, but my neck was pretty stiff afterwards, and hasn't totally recovered now, maybe 30 hours later. Could have been a lot worse. I didn't see another soul until I got almost all the way through the run -- and that was a snowboarder who'd been lying down until I caught up with him. I would have been a lonely camper if I'd been stuck there, or knocked out. . .
I did get to Blackcomb Glacier, and to Seventh Heaven, though I was a bit disappointed with both, and we only stayed on Blackcomb half a day out of 6 days. Blackcomb Glacier was incredible as always, but the WORK to get in and out -- usually enough to keep me from doing it more than once in a week or two -- was WAY more than usual. Instead of being able to blast through the flat (or uphill) exit from the Glacier to Blackcomb Glacier Road (the 5-km-long runout before you get to a VERY LOW lift), the exit was surrounded by so many exposed rocks that it was a pair of skinny and crowded and washboarded tracks. No way to blast, so the last part of the exit was a parade of people skating and poling and walking out to the "You are leaving Blackcomb Glacier" sign -- then skiing 5km of boring runout!
Seventh Heaven was disappointing because it actually had less snow cover than it had in our Jan-Feb trip!! One local hotshot said it mostly has to do with the wind direction during the snow storms. Obviously the sunny Southern exposure is also tough on snow cover. Either way, the chair goes straight over a nifty little bump run that I skiied in Jan-Feb, but wouldn't ski on a dare this week! There were probably some great spots and great shots on Blackcomb, but (a) we didn't hang around to find them and (b) I'm really a Whistler Mountain person.
This morning even brought serious snow cover to Whistler Village, which has been almost unheard of this year -- maybe none at all since the morning we left in early Feb on the 3rd or 4th. Very pretty, though Whistlerites generally learn not to require base-level snow in order to have fun in the Alpine. And it had turned to slush by the time we came back down. More rain and snow over the next few days may destroy the runouts to the Village -- again, something that serious Whistler skiers don't care much about, though "come from aways" seem to think they should always ski out and not download on the lifts. (Silly people!)
So, again, we had good timing/luck, and had a great week. Our "week 12" coincided (unusually) with many school areas' Spring Breaks, which doubtless increased the crowds, though we only hit a few long lift lines. The Village Access lines were made much worse by the fact that Intrawest had (foolishly) converted the Fitzsimmons Chair to summer mountain-bike use, so it could only handle two skiers at a time (with their skis in their laps), instead of 4. On Tuesday, when the lines to get up onto Whistler Mountain were ferocious, it was a crime to see all those chairs going up half empty! (There's nothing wrong with the chairs themselves, it's just that they've built a flat platform at the top, so you can't ski downhill off the chair. Instead, you waddle off on the level with your skis and poles (or board) in your hands, trying to stay ahead of the chair! With a third person on the chair, you'd kill each other! Dumb!!)
Harmony did get remarkably skiied out during the week's sunny days, though Whistler Bowl was still excellent yesterday, before the snow came. Harmony lift was closed today, but some people took the T-bar up and went over the ridge into Little Whistler Bowl and skied Harmony anyway. Not us, though the folks who did it had fun in the fresh snow.
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