Whistler
March 2020

Part 1 - Empty slopes & Splitboarding
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Jump to Part 2 - Riding, Ice Hockey & Howe Sound

After much umming & ahhing - an impromptu 9 day trip to Whistler before the Corona Virus mayhem really kicked in...

Getting acclimatised for Canada at Heathrow...

LHR beer

Welcome to Vancouver and the familiar totems, the luggage carousel atmosphere grew a little tenser when it was announced that the next flight that had landed was in from Hong Kong...

Roughing it - a conference in town meant that the best value accommodation for the first night was the Fairmont Chateau...

Strangely prophetic in the Mallard Lounge...

Whistler has gone craft brew mad and who am I to complain after years of pitchers of Kokanee Gold; as well as 2 new breweries in town, there were at least 3 new pubs too - this one is the cosy Fitzsimmons Pub...

The first day was spent riding with Kev, but unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of us in action.

Day one and all is open after a decent fresh snowfall over the previous 36 hours...

Spent the first couple of days over at Symphony...

Symphony 1

The light was a little flat, so the trees were very welcome...

They hadn't seen much traffic, so even the steeper routes had fresh snow on them...

Beautiful and quiet...

Not a soul in sight in the bowls below Symphony chair...

Totem in town...

Obligatory picture of the Olympic Rings - the town was celebrating the 10 year anniversary of hosting; though even the locals thought it was milking it a bit...

Room at my hotel for the rest of the trip...

Pinnacle 1

Yes, a 2-person Jacuzzi bath right next to the bed...

Seventh Heaven...

The entrance to Xhiggy's meadow...

Trees below...

Fair to say that the weather came in a bit! The track at the top of Seventh Heaven was windswept and brutal and they had to slow the chair right down because of the wind giving maximum cheek-sting exposure.

A warming soup and hot apple juice at the Horstman Hut and all is well...

Again trees are the saviour - but being mindful of tree-wells...

This section was a little steeper and tighter than planned...

Out into a more familiar creekbed...

Splitboarding

One of the main things that convinced me to come over was the availability of a splitboarding course.

So after some kitting-up, weather interpretation and avalanche training it was time to slide up Flute and out into the mountains beyond...

As wrong as it looks, this is the correct way round for the now split board...

Fresh tracks - worth the shuffle...

Away from the crowds on a light wind, blue sky day, the conditions were perfect. However I can imagine skinning up in a blizzard would be a much different prospect as the transitions between board and skis are a bit fiddly...

Snow pit...

Readying for the final descent before the shuffle back up into the ski area boundary...

Skins on show...

Tracks from our last back country descent...

The route back, shuffling along on the skis was a lot easier than bootpacking and that's without taking the deep snow element into account...

Next: Part 2 - Riding, Ice Hockey & Howe Sound

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Whistler March 2020 Part 1 - Empty slopes & Splitboarding Return to Snowboarding Home Page

Whistler

Whistler
March 2020

Part 1 - Empty slopes & Splitboarding
Return to Snowboarding Home Page