Snowboarding

Whistler Vacation: The Official Post

I can’t believe I’ve been back for almost a week and haven’t provided a report on my trip. Apologies! I’ve been buried in work and email since I returned, and have been extremely busy catching up. Thank you for your patience.

I’ve finally snagged a few minutes to sit down and write, so here goes: without further adieu, the complete Whistler vacation report!

(I’m not planning to write this in any particular order, so I apologize in advance in case it emerges as a scattered article.)

The weather

I’ll start by talking about the conditions. When I landed in Vancouver on Sunday (the 14th), I was shocked to see snow on the ground; snow very rarely sticks to the ground in Vancouver (I have a cousin who has a palm tree in his backyard). I figured if there was snow in Vancouver, it must be a hell of a scene in Whistler – and I was right. The news reports don’t lie; Whistler is absolutely buried in snow. Every snowbank I passed was taller than me. Every time.

Over the next week, it would generally snow 5 to 10 centimetres a night, meaning there was plenty of fresh snow to go around. The first day on Whistler Mountain was clear and snow-free, but it snowed 15 or 20 centimetres on our second night… turning day two of riding into a sweet powder day (the guy scanning our lift tickets seemed genuinely sad as he scanned our tickets and sighed, “Enjoy the pow”). We hit Blackcomb Mountain that day, and were not disappointed; although we had to do quite a bit of digging every time we made a bad decision (flat spots are tough to notice in deep powder) we had an amazing day. We hit glaciers, glades and everything in between before heading down to the Longhorn for some sweet après beers.

But I digress. Let’s try to keep it to themes.

My first backcountry experience… sort of

On day three of riding, my cousin, a ski instructor, had an idea. “What if,” he said, pointing to a huge, untouched bowl, “we hiked up there?”

I looked over to the bowl, known to locals as the Flute Bowl, and thought about it for a second. The pitch looked okay. Other folks were hiking up the bowl. And because it was technically inbounds, I knew it had been blasted as part of the mountain’s avalanche control policy.

“What the hell,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

As we passed a sign welcoming us to the Whistler backcountry (and telling us we faced a 15-30 minute hike), I suddenly realized something: all those folks you see wearing backbacks on the hills use them to carry snowboards up the hill. Smart. But it also made me wonder: why the hell do people in Ontario wear them?

Anyway, about 25 minutes later we hit the top of the bowl and dropped in. The subsequent ride, which was about 10 minutes, was definitely worth the effort. There’s something about carving your own lines in a bowl with no-one around that’s difficult to describe. It was phenomenal. I’m sure the backcountry guys and gals that read this site can identify with this. But I also learned a valuable lesson: try to make your ride count! If I realized I had to hike in AND out, I would have tried to explore the bowl by riding sideways a bit more, instead of heading straight down.

The Symphony Express

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know I haven’t shut up about Whistler’s new lift in quite some time. The new Symphony Express serves the Symphony Amphitheatre (a giant bowl), blue-level glades with tons of snow, and also includes a wide-open groomed run that cuts right through the middle of the area. This new area is PHENOMENAL. There’s tons of space to explore, the high-speed lift gets you back up top quickly, and it’s generally free of beginners. The only downside to the new area is getting out; a long cat road has to be traversed, and that’s a nightmare for snowboarders. However, that didn’t stop us from spending a couple of days in the Symphony area.

(For those who plan to visit Whistler, a tip: the Symphony lift closes at 2pm mid-season. Get a last upload at 2, and ride over to Harmony, which closes at 2:30. Then ride down to Emerald Express, which closes at 3, or Garbanzo Express, which doesn’t close until 3:15. By staying in those areas, you can stay on the mountain as late as possible.)

The sleep

When you snowboard every day from 8:30 am to 3:30 pm, you end up going to bed fairly early. I don’t think I stayed up later than 11:00 pm during the entire trip.

I am a loser.

The knee

Believe it or not, I rode six days straight with a torn ACL. Most everyone in our group rode at least five days, one rode five and a half; I did six. It was funny – as the days progressed, I felt better and better. By day six, my body seemed so used to the workout that none of my muscles felt tight or sore at all. But when I got home two days later, my knee and ankle (the one I managed to hurt last year on Seventh Heaven after rolling head-over-heels down a hill on Blackcomb) were saying, “Dude. Stop.” A week later, however, I feel one hundred percent again.

The lessons

I think I learned several random things on this trip:

• You can do booters and kickers with a torn ACL.
• Snowboarding is all about confidence. Once you gain a certainl level of skill and control, the only thing that stops you from blasting down hills without turning is believing you won’t fall.
• There is something uniquely Canadian about sitting outside in a hot tub with a toque and beer in the middle of January.
• A-Line and B-Line, popular mountain biking trails on Whistler Mountain, are damn impossible to find on a snowboard without the help of a local.
• A 156 centimetre snowboard is not suitable for deep powder.
• The Perimeter charter bus from the airport now seems to be like it would be much less of a hassle than taking a cab and then catching a Greyhound bus to Whistler.
• When a Greyhound ticket clerk accuses you of losing the ticket he never gave you, the truth will persevere.
• Most bars and restaurants in town aren’t the best at customer service. The whole town is run by 18 to 22 year old kids looking to travel and ride, and it shows.
• The best route to get around Whistler mountain on a busy day is Creekside Gondola > Expressway > Garbanzo Express.
• Whistler and Blackcomb mountains are never the same two days in a row.

All in, an amazing trip with great friends. I’m sure the experience will provide plenty of fodder for future articles; I also plan to update the Unofficial Whistler Guide as soon as possible.

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