The conditions are continuing to improve, which is a relief as our latest guests have started arriving. There's been snow the last 6 days, with Thursday providing the best conditions since Christmas Day.
After the exertions of Sunday, I had a fairly late start on Monday 17th. Andy had gone up early so I went up to join him and Matt on Whistler, but they were having lunch so I rode Cockalorum into the West Bowl. The snow was OK but a bit tracked out, so I took Peak again and tried the Christmas Trees, where the snow was much better.
I met up with Andy and Matt and we did Cockalorum again, then I took them down Frog Hollow, trying to avoid the cliffs that Bob and I had run into on our previous visit. We found some great snow at the top, then Andy and Matt found an easy way down and I ended up above exactly the same cliff as the last time. Instead of hiking back up I sat there wondering whether it was do-able, and finally decided to try sliding down it. I grabbed hold of a large branch and hung off it for several minutes wondering what was going to happen, then let go and for a couple of seconds my edge held the ice.
When they let go, I shot off down the wall of ice, but thankfully stayed the right way up. I came to rest in a pile of reasonably soft snow at the bottom, met up with Andy and Matt again and we headed home. In the evening Andy cooked a great beef bourguignon, then we spent the rest of the night finishing off a massive jigsaw.
We spent Tuesday 18th on Blackcomb. Andy, Bob, Meg, Stan, Matt and I concentrated on the Glacier and Crystal areas, riding Ridge-Runner and Rock'n'Roll. The recently delivered remote control for the helmet-cam made it's debut and proved a great time-saver, allowing the camera to be started and stopped without having to be unpacked from my bag.
We finished off the day with a blast down Cloud Nine on 7th Heaven then Andy, Matt and I went to the gym. Bob cooked us a chilli then we settled down in front of the PS2 for a game of golf.
Stan, Andy and I had an early start on Wednesday 19th, catching the Whistler Gondola at about 08:20. We were joined by Bob and Jeremy and spent most of the day on Harmony, concentrating on the ridge and practising all kinds of jumps. The snow was OK, but there was not as much new snow arriving as we'd been promised. In the afternoon we met up with Mike and Katie and it began snowing a bit more convincingly, though the levels never reached those forecast.
Ingrid came up in the evening to sing in Tommy Africa's. The four of us had some great tapas in Casa then moved to Blacks for a few drinks before Ing took to the stage. The music in Tommy's was much better than usual, even before the star performer came on. When she did, the crowd went wild, and we overheard various people saying how great Ing was.
Having been told by Kyle's brother, Andy, that there were at least 10cm of fresh snow at the Roundhouse by midnight on Wednesday, I was keen to get an early start again on Thursday 20th. Ingrid and Andy left at 07:00 to go down to Vancouver, so I got up then and caught the 08:00 bus, leaving Bob sleeping off the previous night's excesses.
For some reason the website and snow-phone were reporting 2cm of new snow, but thankfully both were wrong. I reached the Roundhouse at about 08:45 and had a quick run down Green Acres through the family zone to Emerald, finding at least 10cm of snow. At the top of Emerald I met Matt and Stan, and we shot down through the trees between the runs, searching out the best powder. Matt lead us down Little Red Run to Big Red on the next run, and we found some surprisingly good snow in the trees just below the Roundhouse.
When we reached the top of Big Red we noticed Harmony had opened, so we headed over there as quickly as we could and took the chair. We decided the snow underneath the chair to skiers' right of Harmony Piste would go soonest, so had a quick run down through some great powder there, then tried Harmony Ridge. The snow was excellent on the ridge, then we headed left down Kaleidoscope into Harmony Bowl and back to the chair.
We took Burnt Stew Trail next, heading round the far side of Symphony Bowl before cutting straight across and joining Crescendo. Stan then left us to go and look after Josh, so Matt and I had another go down the ridge, via the Glades and Robertson's, both of which had excellent snow.
When we reached the chair, the queue had vanished and we quickly guessed that Peak must have opened. We confirmed this with the liftie, then dropped down beside the T-Bars to Peak chair, expecting to find a huge queue. For some reason there was no queue at all, so Matt and I went straight up, trying to decide between Cockalorum, Christmas Trees, Shale Slope and Frog Hollow as routes down. We agreed Cockalorum was out first choice, so headed down Frontier Pass and took the high drop-in to Cockalorum and the West Bowl.
To our amazement we looked down and saw that there were hardly any tracks in front of us - I'd never seen the snow in the West Bowl looking fresher. The only explanation we could think of for the lack of people was the weather. The visibility was pretty poor at the top and the wind was quite strong, but as we dropped into the bowl both improved, and we traversed into the middle of the bowl.
Turning down the steep face of the bowl was great, with each turn cushioned by over a foot of powder falling away beneath the board like icing sugar. Lower down the angle of the slope lessened and the turning became more like surfing, with the weight on the back leg, using the tail of the board as a rudder. We had such fun that we decided to go straight back up Peak and do it again - we couldn't think of any run that would be better.
After a second run through the West Bowl we met up with Stan again, and he suggested trying Peak to Creek, the run at the centre of the Day of Justice almost a year ago. We took Peak up again, and began the best run of the day.
We started with another Cockalorum drop in, raced down the West Bowl then ducked under the boundary ropes and dropped off the Highway 86 cat-track into the acres of powder leading down to Creekside. The snow at the top was better than I've ever seen on Peak to Creek - the three of us blasted down the huge open powder fields, getting away with much more than we would have without the powder. It was deep enough to cushion the less perfect landings, so when we reached slightly bumpier terrain lower down we could keep our speed up, flying euphorically though the powder.
Towards the bottom the snow deteriorated considerably and by the time we reached Creekside it was slushy, with rocks showing through here and there. We adjourned to the Roundhouse for a quick lunch but were all three keen to try Peak to Creek again.
Bob had finally made it up the hill and joined us for our last run down from Peak. We had a quick debate about the route to take, finally concluding that we would try a new way into Peak to Creek, via Highway 86 and Khybers. Khybers was incredible - definitely the best tree run I've ever done - there was fresh snow everywhere and some great lines though the trees. It took longer than I'd expected to hit the main run, and when I did I found myself separated from the others and on an unknown track. It turned out that I'd gone too far left and had hit a curving cat-track. Following this eventually got me back to the main run, but I'd missed the great snow at the top of Peak to Creek.
I got to the bottom and radioed the others but got nothing back except static. I took the gondola up, hoping to have one more go at Cockalorum, but found Big Red had closed and realised it was after 15:30. I rode back down to the village and caught the bus, where I met Bob. He and Stan had met up on Peak to Creek, but hadn't reached the bottom until 15:50, so missed the last gondola. No-one had seen Matt, but he finally called at about 17:00 to say that he'd ended up in trees too dense to ride and hadn't got down until 16:30!
The jury is still out on the best route into Peak to Creek. Bob is hooked on the trees, and it looks on the map as though it should be possible to combine Khybers and the great snow at the top of Peak to Creek. It seems a shame to me, however, to miss out the West Bowl... | 
