truth & rumour from WB

M

mark

New member
it's getting closer to the good season so i thought i'd post a little of what i've been hearing around town:

- whistler mountain will be the one to open first this year, on november 23
- whistler will close in april; and this year blackomb will remain open through may and june and into the summer glacier season
- the reason is because of proposed renovations to the whistler village gondola (it's about time!)
- symphony express will open this winter in the high alpine terrain off the backside of whistler; good news for people who like steep powder bowls, bad news for those of us who didn't mind hiking for guaranteed good snow
- due to the recent sale of intrawest, the proposed peak to peak gondola will remain proposed for the time being. no further progress has occurred since the sale, and currently the project appears to be on hold
- rumours (unsubstantiated) persist that a gondola will be built on the south side of whistler, connecting to the function junction development
- and of course, we've all heard that this is an El Nino year, same as two years ago. so far we've been having an extremely warm and dry fall - can't complain about that! all we can do is hope...
 
My understanding is that the Symphony Express does not serve much steep terrain. You will still have to hike up Flute Bowl. It will save you the other hike out the bottom of Flute Bowl.

Whistler Alpine snowfall is not that sensitive to El Nino. But bring an umbrella for the village.
 
tony, you are right - symphony will access the top of piccolo, you still have to hike flute. but there are some serious steep lines off piccolo, not to mention some huge natural cornices that form in spots. in my opinion, it seems like a great idea - i'll just do laps of flute all day and never have to wait in line at harmony. remains to be seen what the lineups will be like at symphony though...
as for el nino, two winters ago was one of the worst on record up here, with frequent rain right up to the summit. brutal conditions, as i'm sure many won't forget for a long time. but hey - blackomb's mountain forecaster personally told me that trying to predict weather more than 3 days in advance, you might as well be picking out of a hat. i'm always hoping for the best!
 
Blackcomb's mountain forecaster has it right.

2005 did not make the cut in my definition of El Nino seasons. The MEI table values were positive but modest in size.

Again, at alpine elevations Whistler snowfall is NOT correlated to El Nino/La Nina. There will likely be more rain events at lower elevation during El Nino seasons. The AUG/SEP MEI value, if sustained over the next 6 months, would result in a mild El Nino episode of similar strength to 1995 or 2003. Neither of those were strong enough to do much here in SoCal. All but one of the 7 El Nino seasons stronger than those 2 have significantly higher than normal SoCal snowfall.
 
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