April 16, 2011, Decker (almost)

Russ, Yanna and I took a break from yo-yoing the nice powder on the Blackcomb/Whistler lifts and got a one-ride ticket for Saturday with the notion of heading over to Decker. We rode the t-bar up into the cloud hoping it would soon part. We got hints of sun as we climbed to East Col, and the trend encouraged us enough that we decided to give it a go and head down, though with map/compass handy. I've only been back there once and it's amazing how confusing terrain can be when you only have the map and what you see very close by, but some breaks helped us follow the tracks of others (presumably either Spearhead traversers or folks going out toward Pattison/Tremor/etc.) to the base of the climb to Decker. The clouds just weren't giving us a break, so we did a little but fun weeny run down to the flats to have an early lunch, and sure enough, the clouds opened and we started up, with views all the way back to East Col. I took some mental snapshots. And as you might have already guessed, the clouds re-formed as we climbed, but the forecast of "showers and sunbreaks" suckered us onwards, as the powder seemed STELLAR and there were only three tracks marring the broad white canvas. As visibility closed in, we decided to stop before crossing a wind feature that separated us from the summit plateau, and instead we headed climber's right to a little wind-protected area where we needed to be mindful of where the cornices above us might land if they broke. The clouds teased us with some increasing visibility but the light stayed flat, and we hit our predetermined "ski time" as graupel started spitting down. We basically followed the guideance of our skin track back to near the 9th hole using survival turns, and debated heading down Decker Creek which in retrospect would have been a wise choice. But I've only been out that way once and things sure look different in near whiteout, and we'd been over East Col just that morning and had the map/compass/altimeter... The wind and snow really picked up and it started to feel like we had a bit of "navigational epic" potential as I was trailbreaking and could not see drop-offs right next to my skis, though we could still see the rocks along the ridge that goes up toward Disease Ridge and Blackcomb Peak, so we continued. We ran into two locals up near the peak just before the entrance to Body Bag Bowl right around the point at which Russ mentioned noticing 6" slabs cracking easily (and we noticed that their tracks were filling in to the point of invisibility w/in minutes), and they offered to let us tag along as they escaped. They soon figured out that they were not quite where they thought they were as they'd hoped to ski into BB Bowl, and instead they skied down toward the Decker Creek exit, which provided nice handrails out to where we broke free of the cloud deck, right about at the ridge next to Body Bag Bowl. We got some short-but-sweet turns down to the bowl in shin-deep pow that had no feeling of "base" and then did the exit out to the controlled runs. And I realized that I would have done OK picking our own route out via Decker Creek going on decade-old memories and the map. I guess my lesson is to trust the impulse to "go for the handrail" as the weather closes in - worst case is that we'd have had to fart around a bit skinning to find the Seventh Heaven base, but we'd have been down in the trees by that point. But in any case, we used all the tools at our disposal, including the "local."

On Sunday, we chose to get lift-seved laps on Blackcomb Glacier, which offered a few sweet runs of powder, followed by as much packed powder as our thighs could handle out on the high speed quads (same deal as Friday). From local reports from this past weekend, I have to thank Russ once again for luring us up for a long weekend of powder in April!! Yanna says it was her best vacation in a while. It may not be the Alps, but Whistler/Blackcomb almost feels like another country!  ;)