You can never be sure! The forecast for Whistler-Blackcomb sounded terrible: rain/showers, and 14C. But we had the trip planned out - meeting some friends from North Van and the Island. I drove out with several pairs of skis, and three mountain bikes, while my Canmore friends flew. The first thing you get over is the upload into the snow zone. Magically, the drizzle turned to snow at the top of the Wizard Chair (Blackcomb) on Friday April 10. The underlying base was absolutely solid (rains and warm weather), but it quickly got pretty nice with the storm, and there were very few skiers.
That changed Saturday as the skiers/boarders crawled out of the woodwork. We were back at the Wizard Chair at 8:15 - by the time we got to the Glacier Chair, which was not running, there was a fair lineup. We waited about 30 minutes, and were rewarded with what you see in the above picture. Reasonable visibility, and lots of new snow! The lineup for Spankys was already forming at the top! We ripped a few on Glacier, and then one down Blackcomb Glacier (Left-Left was very sketchy due to the underlying bulletproof base). Spent the afternoon on Seventh Heaven, which was very pleasant.
Next morning, we mountain biked the Frank Zappa-named singletracks around Lost Lake - what a great job they did building those! By the afternoon, we were skiing Whistler until the lifts closed. Harmony Bowl was great!
By Monday, there were only two of us left to have another storm day. We managed to ski Harmony and Peak chairs a couple of times, but the visibility was terrible. We retreated to the Red Chair for the remainder of the day, and it got better as the day went on.
Tuesday: had to stay another day! 10 cm overnight, and the Peak Chair runs were remarkable! Such a spectacle to watch the young bucks throwing themselves off the cliffs for the amusement of the line-up! To boot, it was the only bluebird day of the trip, and it does not get better than that.
All-in-all a great trip to the coast!
