March 21-22 , 2005, Whistler

Hit Blackcomb first thing Monday morning. None of the alpine had been opened during the storm so it was about 2 feet of deep fresh powder, drifted in deeper in places.<br><br>It had been really windy but the snow seemed pretty stable w/ just the occassional bomb slough here and there. After the high winds I was expecting to see more debris. Coverage was surprisingly good up high, but there was still a lot of early season contour (which I actually prefer -- all the fun little rock drops and berms haven't been filled in a smoothed over).<br><br>Best Blackcomb run was being one of the first five down Ruby bowl from the highpoint drop-in. Rode all of the North bowls off Whistler peak all afternoon -- plenty of lightly tracked steeps and trees out there.<br><br>The trees above Harmony chair were excellent Tuesday morning early, then hiked laps out to Flute, 4 of them, until 2 pm. I know a lot of people were opposed to the opening of Flute as an avy controlled area, but it was really something to be able to ride those sick snow-porn lines on a great powder day, and it didn't get tracked out too fast. And I definitely wouldn't have ridden some of the line I did w/o knowledge that avy pro's had given Flute a good going over.<br><br>A fit skier w/ skins you could hit it up maybe 8 times in a day and still get in several lift-served runs too -- good balance of tons of vert, fresh tracks and some decent exercise.<br><br>Finished the day with a few laps of the low/mid-level park and an extremely marginal ski out. There is a lot of great snow out there in the Coast Mountain above 4000 feet, and if it snows again next weekend it will only get better and definitely make for some worthy spring trips.