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A Christmas gift of Whistler powder
By ruth | December 27, 2007
My Christmas gift to you blog readers is to let you in on some of the lovely powder we found in Whistler on the weekend before Christmas.
There was an awful lot of snow – but there was also an awful lot of wind and avalanche risk, so on Saturday none of the high lifts were open. It didn’t matter in the slightest because there was a foot of powder on the trails, even the busy ones that loop Big Red and Emerald Express. But even better, the heavily falling snow was keeping the crowds away, so that even though we only starting powder-hunting in earnest mid-morning, we got fresh tracks all day.
So here, for those of you who don’t already know the mountain way better than I do, is a list of the lovely powder stashes we found and how to get to them:
1. From the Roundhouse, hike a short way (ten minutes or so) up the lower part of Pika’s Traverse, until you’re well past the snow-making reservoir below you. From here there are several gorgeous lines down to the lower part of GS Run – but our favourite was just past the clump of trees on the corner, but before the big boulder. The pitch is just the right steepness, there’s lots of room for everyone so it doesn’t get tracked too quickly, and there are widely spaced trees to turn through. This is particularly good if Harmony is still shut because you have to hike to get to it so not many people bother.
2. Again from the Roundhouse, ride down the start of GS Run to the flat bit. Just after the reservoir, where you would normally strap your back foot in again after scooting, unstrap and hang a left to hike a very short way over a small ridge. This was where we met Santa, who pointed out the awesome powder and let us take photos with him before getting in some powder lines of his own. There’s a nice wide open powder field followed by a pretty steep pitch, which gets bumpy when tracked but still huge amounts of fun and lots of space to play in. However you choose to go down you’ll end up on Sidewinder which, though it’s a horrible flat road, will get you safely back to the base of Emerald.
(Incidentally this was where, in the course of playing the new and dangerous game I invented, I ended up in the second most undignified position I’ve ever found myself while snowboarding. If you want to know more you’ll have to ask me on the forum…)
3. From the section of GS Run that intersects with Harmony piste, just above the Harmony chair, instead of staying on the piste head into the trees just to the right. There’s a gorgeous tree run through a canyon which, when there’s enough snow, is about as much adrenaline-fuelled fun as I can handle. It spits you out above the lift with just enough elevation to make it past the flat to Sidewinder.
4. On Blackcomb Mountain, go up the Glacier Express chair (but make sure you’ve battened down the hatches and brought your courage, because the chair ride is not for the faint-hearted on a windy day). At the top, go looker’s left off the chair, and down the first section of the blue run until you come to a section where you can choose to continue on a long traversing road, or drop left onto a black (called Heavenly Bowl) that looks vertical. Choose the black. It’s not anywhere near as steep as it looks from above, and on a powder day the piste itself is as sweet as sweet can be; but even that is not as good as the snow just off-piste on the right-hand side (skier’s right) of the lower portion, where I got about twelve of the smoothest, most swooping powder turns of my life.
So there you go – it was a wrench to let go of my secrets, but it’s all in the spirit of the season – and maybe you’ll share some of yours in the comments!
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Topics: /snow | 2 Comments »
December 27th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
I think it might be called “Heavenly Basin” not “Heavenly Bowl”
The canyon on GS starts just before the very steep last pitch down to the lift, it’s pretty narrow and steep though so caveat emptor…
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:47 am
This blog looks pretty interesting, especially if you`re going to give up all your powder stashes! Can`t really take advantage of the info where I`m living though…