Over the last couple of days the weather has let us down again: although there's been over a metre of snow in the last 7 days, the conditions at the moment are horrendous. High temperatures are melting the lower slopes and turning the powder on the mid-slopes to concrete, whilst high winds are keeping the Alpine lifts closed. There should be some amazing snow when the weather relents but until then life is just a little frustrating.
I spent Monday 10th on Whistler. Stan and I rode together in the morning but, as often seems to be the case after a great powder day like Sunday, we were lacking inspiration. There hadn't been much new snow overnight, so all of the great runs we'd done the day before were slightly more tracked out than they had been, even though the low temperature meant that the snow quality was still OK.
We bumped into Matt and Rich in the Roundhouse at lunchtime, then Stan went down and I rode with Matt and Rich, mainly in the Harmony area.
In the evening Andy, Matt, Rich and I met up with Stan, Kinga and Josh for a great meal at Hy's Steakhouse. Matt, Stan and I headed on to Garfinkel's to try and win a snowboard but didn't have any luck.
On Tuesday 11th I took Matt and Rich for an introductory tour of Blackcomb. We began on 7th Heaven, where the visibility at the top was appalling. The cloud along the cat-track was very dense and, combined with the headwind, made the track very difficult to negotiate. Dropping down towards Panorama and Cloud Nine, the visibility improved slightly and as we took off down Cloud Nine things were looking much better.
I left the boys on Cloud Nine and shot down to the chair at full speed, then had another run down through the trees to skier's right of the chair. The snow there was pretty good but by that time the pistes were getting a little bumpy. I caught up with Matt and Rich after a very speedy run down Panorama and we took the chair up again for a break at Horstman, where we briefly saw Matt L and Emma.
We dropped over towards Showcase T-Bar after our hot chocolates and cookies, then carried on down Ridge Runner to the Crystal Hut. We switched to Rock'n'Roll for the slightly slushy descent to Excelerator, then set off for the Crystal Chair in the hope of having lunch at the top. Unfortunately we didn’t all make it round one of the important corners on the route to Crystal, so instead we took Jersey Cream up and, after a second attempt, made it to Crystal Chair.
We had a nice relaxed lunch in the Crystal Hut, though after Hy's, no-one was really up for the steak sandwich, never mind a waffle.
We rode down Ridge Runner to Jersey Cream then down though the terrain park, where we watched some of the experts in the double-diamond park. The snow was getting slushier and slushier, so when we came to a choice between roads to Solar Coaster and Excelerator, we chose the latter and downloaded the gondola back to the village.
After a trip to the gym Matt cooked a couple of great spaghetti sauces for dinner, then we relaxed at home in the evening.
Wednesday 12th began at a much more sedate pace than some of the previous days, with a 10:30 bus and a quick run down to Emerald to warm up. At the top I met Bob, Stan and Matt L, and we had a quick debate about the best direction to go. Bob and Matt ended up going to Harmony, where they thought the visibility would be better than Peak. Stan and I took our chances with Peak.
The top of Peak was at it's most inhospitable, with a howling gale and zero visibility. As we took the Frontier Pass road down from the summit we eventually came to a stand-still in the white-out, decided the other party had made the right decision, and spent five minutes trying to work out which way was down.
A gap in the cloud allowed us to see a piste-marker or two and we set off, eventually reaching Cockalorum and our route (under a huge wind-blown cornice) into the West Bowl.
Following our usual route, we traversed across from Cockalorum into the centre of the bowl. As we did so, the visibility cleared, and we looked down on a huge expanse of untouched snow. Unlike some recent powder days, there was enough snow to completely cover any previous tracks or bumps, so there was no contact with anything other than the superbly soft powder.
As we turned downhill and accelerated through the fresh snow we both whooped with excitement and began bouncing the turns down the steep face of the West Bowl. The conditions were as good as I've ridden through the bowl - no tracks, soft snow, and enough visibility to plan at least a turn or two ahead.
We took the ramp to skier's right of the main bowl outlet, hit the track and soon reached Big Red. As we took the chair up we agreed that the unpleasant conditions at the top of Peak were worth enduring for the run down through the bowl and began planning another descent. At the top of Big Red we were distraught to find that the wind had reached a sufficient level to close the Peak chair and Stan gave up at that point, retreating to the Roundhouse to see Kinga.
I took G.S. over to Harmony and met up with Bob, Matt L and Dave at the bottom of the chairlift. We took the chair up and decided to take Harmony Piste back down, but by the time we'd reached the turning for Pika's Traverse we'd had enough of being blown over, so took the track back to the Roundhouse, noticing as we passed the lightboard that Harmony had now closed as well.
I had offered to look after Josh so Kinga and Stan could do a run or two together, but Josh was having none of it and refused to allow his mum to leave. Eventually we gave up trying to prize him away from Kinga and, after a bite to eat, Stan and I set off in search of some decent snow. Inexplicably we tried Dave Murray, though why we thought that descending to the lowest point of the resort would provide better conditions escapes me. As we should have guessed, it got wetter and slushier all the way down.
Back up at Mid-Station we decided to call it a day and headed down to the Dubh Linn Gate. After a few phone calls, both Matts, Rich, Andy, Bob and Dave joined us for some nachos.
We spent the early evening back home preparing for another night out, with Crystal very kindly delivering some essential Shakespeare's Pies. When we'd despatched those we all went out to Tommy Africa's, where Lexi was celebrating her birthday.
Somehow I managed to get myself out of bed in time for Fresh Tracks on Thursday 13th, despite not making it to bed until the early hours. Discovering that it was raining, too warm and too windy, I called Stan to discuss our plan, but there was no answer. Happily I returned to my bed and was just dropping off when Stan called back and pointed out that there was 50cm of new snow. Reluctantly I caught the bus in and walked through the torrential rain to the front to the Fresh Tracks queue where Stan was waiting.
The gondola was running at a fraction of it's normal speed due to the rain, so we wondered whether we'd have time for breakfast. As it happened, Emerald hadn't even started turning when we got up to the Roundhouse. We sat down and began eating but soon noticed Emerald running, then saw the first skiers and riders setting off. We ditched our breakfast and ran out into the wind an snow to get our boards.
The first run was mad. We took our usual route, landing some big jumps off the Whiskey Jack cat-track and crossing Ego Bowl towards the lift. The snow, however, was unbelievably wet and slow. As I approached the chairlift my pace gradually slowed until the front of my board sank in and I flew over the top, wishing for the first time that my board was a little longer and wider! After several minutes struggling to get myself going again I carried on down the side of Ego Bowl and found Stan stuck slightly further down.
We took another run down Ego Bowl, then switched to Green Acres but found people littered all over the piste. No-one could stand up and once on the ground it took ages to get going again. Although the snow was OK when completely fresh, it was so wet that it turned to concrete after a few people had ridden over it, so hitting tracked snow it at any speed normally resulted in a crash.
Matt L appeared for one more run down Ego Bowl, before we all decided to call it a day. I would happily have taken the gondola down but was convinced that we should ride, so we set off down Whiskey Jack then Ptarmigan. The snow got wetter and wetter, with streams appearing as we approached the village. Matt and I had to stop at one point to plan our route through the massive lakes appearing on the slopes but managed to wakeboard down and eventually arrived in the village.
Most of the rest of the day was spent worrying about the wind and recovering. We sat around in the house sleeping, eating, playing cards and watching Road to Perdition, while the trees in the garden swayed alarmingly and deposited small branches on the roof. In between that and going to the gym I looked online to check the status of the lifts and found that all had closed except the Whistler Gondola. I later heard that even that closed in the early afternoon.
We began Friday 14th with a visit to the hire shop, as Matt had finally seen the light and decided to exchange his skis for a snowboard. Thursday's horrendous weather was still affecting lift operations: the Village Gondola was closed, so we took Fitzsimmons and Garbanzo up to Chic Pea, where we met Stan then were joined by Bob and Matt L. On arrival we were told that there were no other lifts open on the mountain, which left us a bit stuck - we didn't really want to go back down to Garbanzo as it was slushy, raining and the queue was likely to grow.
As we stood around trying to decide what to do, we heard that Emerald had opened, so we set off in that direction. Bob, Stan and Matt L raced off, leaving Rich and me to coax Matt down the hill on his board. Rich disappeared off down to Emerald pretty soon and wasn't seen again until we got down.
Matt and I slowly progressed down the hill, then took Emerald up to the Roundhouse. We bumped into Bob, Stan and Matt L there and I left Matt to do a quick run down Green Acres, then another run down through the trees with Stan, while Bob and Matt L stopped for coffee.
Stan and I paused for a hot chocolate break at the Roundhouse and met up with Matt again, then set off up a little hike to do Rabbit Tracks. It was only about a five minute climb from the top of Emerald but it lead to the best snow of the day, surfing down between the trees towards the Harmony lift. As we reached the steep G.S. run down to the lift it was very tempting to drop off the cat-track, then even more so when we reached the Millennium jump further down the track, but we knew that leaving the track would give us a huge walk, so carried on down to Sidewinder and back to Emerald.
Stan carried on down the hill to the village while I took the chair back up and rode down Ratfink then through the trees to Green Acres. I bumped into Matt at the bottom of the chair, then at the top we stopped at Pika's, where we'd promised to meet Kinga.
Kinga never found us, so we called Stan and eventually set off down Ego Bowl, where we immediately bumped into Kinga. The three of us rode slowly down, with me offering as much useful advice as I could think of. Both students were improving all the time, but when Matt's boots required adjustment, Kinga carried on and we never managed to catch up.
I left Matt to do a couple of quick runs in the hope of catching Kinga, but couldn't find her and eventually mat up with Matt again at the Roundhouse. He was pleased with his day's progress but no keener than I was to ride down to the village, so we downloaded in the gondola then adjourned to the Dubh Linn Gate for a drink. | 
