poutanen

Alright I'm going to try to keep this as short as possible. Which isn't going to be easy!

Headed to Vancouver for a week and was lucky enough to board for three of those days. I headed to Cypress on the 23rd, and met up with Donutz, Timmytard, and Kung Pow. Seymour on the 25th with Donutz. And Whistler Blackcomb on the 27th with a friend of mine that lives in Whistler.

Snow conditions: Two weeks before I headed there, they had a period of no precipitation and hardpack conditions as far as I know. So I was thrilled to see snow in the forecast! Little did I know that vancouver snow = rest of canada rain! lol It was a little weird driving up to Cypress that first morning and having no snow on the ground, and as I got higher and higher there was finally a little snow at the side. By the time I got to the base the rain had turned into a wet snow falling. By the end of the day the wet snow had turned into lighter snow falling on top of wet snow, so it was interesting to ride to say the least. Felt like spring boarding to me.

Seymour had better snow, but had developed a strong crust in any off-piste area. It was tough to look at all this perfect looking snow and knowing that hitting it would be a near death experience!

Whistler-Blackcomb had similar snow on the lower mountain, but luckily the upper mountain was cold enough that it's snow was lighter and fluffier.

Weather: Flat light with just a bit of sun at the best of times, fog/rain/pea soup at the worst of times!

Terrain: I was pleasantly surprised by Cypress and Seymour, and a little underwhelmed with Whistler. Cypress has a good range of on-piste runs, a great mid-range park, and some really decent off-piste terrain. Seymour actually has quite a lot of fun steeper terrain, mixed with flatter sections. Unfortunately the snow at both meant that while I had good days boarding with the guys, I didn't have a great experience with the terrain.

The lift system at Cypress is a little better, with Seymour only having one high speed lift (that oddly seems to have it's chairs about twice as spaced out as every other high speed quad I've been on ).

When I say Whistler-Blackcombs terrain was underwhelming, I'm comparing it with the best of the Canadian rockies. As far as mountains go it has fantastic terrain, something for everybody and plenty of everything. What I was expecting was something more "epic" although I hate to use that word. And I feel that Fernie and Kicking Horse have WB beat in the type of terrain I like the most (steep gladed runs with fairly dense trees, long fall lines, etc.)

I guess what I'm saying is, to me Whistler has better terrain than 95% of the other resorts out there, but I was expecting better.

Overall Experience: Had a great day at Cypress despite the rain. Probably due to a great group of guys to board with. I think we all pushed each other to keep going, go faster, harder, longer in the air, etc. Never waited for a lift once, although it was a Wednesday and raining.

Seymour was also a good day. Boarding with Donutz was a blast, but once he left I did about two more runs and got bored. The lift lines for a Friday were long!

Blackcomb I experienced on a Sunday, and I had a mild hangover and was coming down with a cold. So I certainly wasn't 100% in the morning. In the afternoon we moved over to the Whistler side, and I liked more terrain there. I also had some Tylenol in me which helped. We did the peak to creek run which was a fun workout. Found some VERY technical terrain in an unmarked run under the Big Red Express near Jimmy's Joker. Was my best turns of the week. By the end of the day I was sad that we outlasted the lifts...

I would like to head back one day when the weather and the snow is better, but in the meantime I like my Canadian Rockies resorts!!!

GPS Tracks: In order... Cypress, Seymour and Whistler

poutanen

Photos:

Cypress in the morning...


Seymour with a rare glimpse of blue sky!


Part of the terrain park at Seymour...


Late in the day the clouds started to break!


Whistler technical shit!




My reward for making it down an ice face...


My buddy Chris on the Whistler side, possibly before our last run.


I got a fair bit of video too but that's going to take a while to wade through... I'll post it up here when I'm done!

poutanen

Placeholder for videos... No idea when I'll post them.

mitch19

Any video of that steep as part? Might suss out the general area (apart from the waterfall ) after the next big dump haha

Donutz

I gotta admit, January was not a good snow month in the lower mainland. However, December was so unusually good that we were able to survive without a lot of bare patches.

Looks like Feb is starting out with some good snowfall predictions. Sorry poutanen.

__________________

Illegitimi non carborundum

Mountain Days: 30

poutanen

Unfortunately I didn't bring the camera on whistler-blackcomb at all! I can zoom in on that second of GPS data so you know exactly where I found it...

Okay see below, the hill slopes down to the NW in this picture. You follow bear cub under the big red express, then cut into the trees under the lift. You can see the whole entrance from the lift, and what drew me to it was a total lack of tracks in the powder!

I think I've been spoiled in AB because overall the snow was pretty good in the Vancouver area... Unfortunately I'm getting used to having some fresh light powder to hit almost all the time! I'm becoming a powder snob and it's not good!