1/7/20 Whistler Pow Day

Creekside Gondola by itself, would be a very fine ski area! As it's an access lift, it's easy to forget how good it is and take it for granted. Today it had the best runs on the mountain by far. At 6am they said 4",but by 7 am it was 6" and just dumping. I hit the singles line at 8:02 and it was already long and the lift didn't open early as usual. So sometime around 9:15, I decided to ski the Gondo instead of race to the top like everyone else. I broke trail on Crossover, and skied knee deep first tracks on Lower Franz's! At the split I went left again and had huge powder bumps just disintegrating all around me. Excellent snow! Then I stretched left even further and had to break a half mile of trail to get to the last 1,000' of the never opened or groomed Peak to Creek. Once getting there I shared the wide slope with a couple of millionaire tracks coming out of Kadenwood. These helped me on the flats...Once the steepness picked up a little, it was full speed, full depth, bottomless charging to the bottom. Run of the year for sure. Of course I repeated it and then finally went to the top. As I was soaking wet from the hard trail breaking, I froze all the way up the Ever Windy Red Chair. On the ride up I learned that the top was heavy and wet, and only the very strong were happy. I dried off and skied Franz's all the way down. Upper Franz was hard as a rock set up, sticky cement, and the middle chopped up stuff was a chore but not that bad. The lower I got - the better the turns. I finished on the finally groomed Lower Dave Murry.
Exhausted, wet, cold, and happy, I went and had lunch at home and dried everything. I had a great Polish idea! I would try out my new untralight BC kit by skinning up hiway 86 and thru the trees to Peak to Creek. I had brought the wrong skins, so just figured I'd herringbone where I had to. Fortuitously, I had so much skin glue residue on the bases, that the snow cacked up and let me go up without skins! The flats and downhills were distractions, but I made the traverse ok. I cleaned my skis and descended the 3,000, of mostly junk powder 2 1/2' deep! It was very hard with my lightweight Atomics, and I was destined to crouch like a bad snowborder and straight line everything as long as nerve and thighs allowed. It was a type 2 fun adventure, and a great test of my new gear. That was my afternoon run....Anybodys guess what tomorrow will bring. The Alpine never opened so maybe the snow up high is still good.......maybe not.

Today's mini inversion was only 2 degrees - but it was huge! I'm certain that loads of people quit on the upper mountain and went home. It was harsh. A few times every year good stuff can happen down low. I've also skied deep powder that came in 6" deeper than the upper mountain. Heads up! But it's always hard to not head for the top...