whistler - 050121

[mark]

The rain finally subsided long enough for me to venture up the mountain today. Anything below 1800m has been completely destroyed by the rain - the coverage is worse than late april last year (and last spring sucked).
The run outs have survived for now, but only because they had been blowing snow solid for 3 weeks prior to this. Anywhere without man-made snow is out of the question.

They opened the Peak mid-morning, and we managed to get a couple of runs in 30cm of cement that has fallen over the past 4 days. If the water content wasn't so high, I'm sure it would have been close to a metre. The coverage at the top is actually better now than it has been all season. But more rain to come this weekend with freezing levels above 2500m (somewhere in the stratosphere).
We got some really nice runs under harmony, especially dropping in from the ridge. There was no one on the mountain today, so we were lapping Harmony in 12 minutes with fresh lines every time. It wasn't powder, but it was a hell of a lot better than rain.
Lots of avalanche debris all over the bowls and through the steep trees. But it seemed pretty stable now.

So the bad news is that this is probably the one and only decent day to be had for a while. Rain and high freezing levels are going to move in tonight and persist until Tuesday. The long term forecast shows temps dropping with snow on the way. It's not too late yet...

Our terrible conditions....

 

[Tony Crocker]

Due to my ill-timed upcoming trip to interior B.C. (starting tomorrow for a week) I called around and found the following detailed information:

Great Northern Snowcat (where I will be Sunday - Tuesday, about 60 miles south of Revelstoke) is not skiing the past 3 days for the first time in its 25-year history. The reason is that a wet avalanche blocked its access road for 2 days. Terrain tops out at 7,400 ft. Nearby Selkirk Wilderness Snowcat is operating. They go up to 8,200 ft. and report that the snow level from Tuesday - Thursday was 6,500 ft. The snow level may drop a little, but they are not sure how much, in the next storm starting tomorrow.

CMH Kootenay in Nakusp has been down all week. Their customers drove back to Spokane and flew to SLC for the rest of the week to salvage some skiing.

Red Mt., Big White and Whitewater have had rain, but their 5-6 foot snowpacks are intact. Sun Peaks has had light rain with some mix at the top of the mountain and expects snow for the next storm.

Craig Morris' grim pictures ( http://far.redtree.com/cgi-bin/far/farr ... 050120.txt ) tell the story at Fernie. Island Lake Snowcat's current customers got one day skiing out of 4. The next 2 groups have been offered credits applicable to one of the next 2 seasons and 95% of clients have accepted the offer. They do not expect to be skiing until next Thursday at the earliest. Castle Mt. is closed until further notice.

Kicking Horse is only place I could reach next week that has positive news. They have 30 inches new on the upper half of terrain, though it rained on the lower half. At the moment I would not be able to get there because Rogers' Pass is closed. Hopefully that will change by Tuesday. Lake Louise and Sunshine have had all snow, 2+ feet of it.