Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Opening Weekend at Whistler Blackcomb

I have officially started my snowboarding season for 08/09 this past weekend, Nov 28th and 29th, in Whistler. Whistler mountain actually opened on Nov 26th with Blackcomb mountain opening one day later, on Nov 27th. Now since I’m now working full-time in Vancouver I can really only get up to Whistler on the weekends…I hate being a weekend warrior.



I was a bit worried with regards to the conditions as I have been checking the snow report for the last two months and never really saw any significant snowfall…even up to opening day. As a matter a fact the freezing level and overall air temperature was well above seasonal….now you can see why I was so concerned.

On Saturday I hit the slopes pretty late, at about 10am, to avoid the huge lineup for the Whistler gondola that was expected. Since it was the US Thanksgiving and opening Whistler mountain on Saturday was packed with people….it’s a good thing that I did wait until later in the morning. Also the snow conditions were what I thought they would be shit. The alpine temperature was about + 4 degrees celsius and there were times were it drizzled rain because the freezing level was above the peak of the mountain....I felt sorry for people who paid $83 plus to ride in those shitty conditions. Sunday we decided to hit up Blackcomb. The conditions actually got even worse over night because it didn’t snow and the alpine temperature was almost 8 degrees celsius…..spring like conditions. The good thing is that it wasn’t too busy but even with that said we only took a couple of run and packed it in for the day. Overall opening weekend was disappointing with regards to snow conditions as I was hoping for a lot better. I just hope we don’t see another 04/05 season in Whistler as I really want to do more powder riding this year and get into the backcountry.



Well all you Whistler riders prey to the snow gods for a huge dump of snow to come really soon because it is much needed for Whistler and Blackcomb mountain.



I’ll keep you post on the conditions this coming weekend.


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