The problem is, Vancouver winter weather fluctuates between “just cold enough to snow on the mountains nearby” and “warm”. And this year, the weather in Vancouver has been very warm. So warm, in fact, that Cypresss had to close early due to a lack of snow. And with the Olympics only weeks away, the world is watching as VANOC scrambles to put together courses for halfpipe, ski and snowboard cross and other competitions with a combination of snow they saved and… wood and straw. Seriously. There is such a lack of snow on Cypress that structures to support the courses now need to be built, and they are going to be partially composed of wood and straw.

This is extremely embarrassing, and news coverage of the problem grows daily. (Check out this update here, or simply use Google News to locate one of the hundreds of stories now detailing the problem).

It should be noted that Whistler currently has more snow than they know what to do with. As I left they were constructing the downhill courses and they looked great. But again, if VANOC had no choice but to use Cypress, I suppose it was an understandable calculated risk… which now appears to be working against them.

I have had the opportunity to really challenge myself as a snowboarder – to get better and try different things – and instead I have consistently settled for days upon days of throwing myself down groomed runs, happy that they were slightly more challenging and much much longer than Ontario.

It took 150 centimetres over the past week – yes, that’s how much it snowed while I was in Whistler – to show me that Whistler is an incredibly gigantic mountain area with so much terrain that you never have to do the same run twice. It also showed me how much more I needed to learn to become even remotely good at riding (by anything but Ontario standards).

As I mentioned in a previous post, we started the week with an epic dump that would set the tone for the entire trip. It literally snowed a minimum of 10-15 centimetres every day. This meant there was plenty of terrain to explore virtually risk-free; I mean, if you flub a drop or a steep run all you’re going to basically do is land in powder anyway. We used the first day to explore areas we were already relatively familiar with, but that were now covered in powder.

But it was a mini-tour by a cousin of mine who lives in the area who really opened our eyes. On our second day, he took us straight over to the Whistler Bowl area, a collection of bowls and chutes that were simply packed with powder. And although they were all inbounds, a fair bit of it was difficult to access if you didn’t know where you were going (Doom & Gloom, Christmas Tress, Frog Hollow). Which meant the powder stayed in there all week.

After a couple of days learning how to deal with knee-deep powder all the time, Steve and I gained a level of confidence in our riding I don’t think we had before. And from that point, we made it our purpose to only ride areas packed with pow, which meant avoiding groomed runs at all costs and instead exploring all areas of both mountains (and putting ourselves in a few precarious situations as well).

A week later, I’m now back at home. I am sore as hell from digging my ass out of powder, hitting trees head-first (lesson: always wear a helmet), hiking, hitting unexpected drops, pulling myself back from the edges of cliffs, and spending so much time leaning on by back foot while I pointed my board through mountains of snow that I can hardly move it. As one guy I ran into on Blackcomb Mountain said, the place was a “powder barn” all week. And I fear I’ll never see conditions like that again.

Some other highlights of our trip:

• We lined up for Blackcomb’s Glacier Express lift two days in a row, knowing there would be an assload of pow in there. As the few folks ahead of us made their runs down the mountain, everyone was cheering them on. They responded by hooting and hollering as they cut through knee-deep pow. It was pretty awesome.
• Hitting “surprise stashes” one would think to be tracked out that never were. Example: taking the t-bar run from Harmony down to Peak Chair. Despite it’s easy accessibility, it was always full of crazy snow.
• Spending 30 minutes hiking Flute Bowl for about four minutes of pow, and realizing it was totally worth it about 15 seconds into the run.
• Discovering that the Harmony Ridge area can actually drop you into any kind of terrain you like.
• Apres beers at the infamous Longhorn. Possibly the best place for beer in Whistler?
• Visiting four stores in Whistler to try and replace my snowboard leash, until I finally realize no-one knows what I’m talking about because no-one has them.

I have so many updates to the Whistler Guide at this point that it’s not even funny. I will try to get on that as soon as I can.

That’s a statement we heard several times Saturday from locals up here in Whistler.

Initially, Steve and I were worried we had missed the big pow day. After all, we arrived Friday night, and Whistler had received about 40-50 centimetres of snow the night before. While we knew the mountain would be full of snow, we also thought it would be more or less tracked out. So while we were happy to be here, we kind of wished we had arrived the day before.

So when we geared up Saturday and headed up Whistler Mountain, we were kind of shocked at the chaos around us. Lineups everywhere. People giddy. WTF, I thought. Wasn’t this place supposed to be dead leading up to the Olympics?

On our first run we realized why we might have been mistaken (aside from the fact it was also the weekend of Martin Luther King Day, an American holiday). Some of our favourite runs were knee-deep in snow. Obviously it had snowed enough for everyone from Vancouver to head up and enjoy the pow.

Then, during a conversation with some locals on our second run of the day, we had our “oh shit” moment: the alpine hadn’t been open in a few days, but was going to open that day. That meant 50-70 centimetres of fresh snow likely awaited in the bowls of Whistler.

Sure enough, when the bowls opened, it was madness. Fresh tracks all day, anywhere. We spent most of our time in the Symphony Bowl area, riding down Piccolo Face and into the glades that waited below. We even did the 30-minute hike up Flute Bowl and were rewarded with runs that had been touched by literally zero skis or boards. It was simply spectacular.

And the crazy part? It hasn’t stopped snowing since. Yesterday was a powder day too. And overnight it snowed another 20 centimetres. This is just crazy. Not to mention we’ve spent next to no time on any of the runs we’ve come to know and love – it’s all been spent in bowls and off-piste.

Here’s a photo from the Unsanctioned glade on Saturday. What a day.

Stay tuned for plenty more updates and photos from Whistler. I’ll also have a massive update to the Whistler Guide upon the conclusion of the trip.

We have written about Jay Peak several times, and I’d like to get a Jay Peak guide started after this next visit.

Maybe the biggest knock (or selling point, depending on how you look at it) on Jay is the lack of any sort of facilities or apres scene. Once the sun goes down, there’s little to do other than hang out at the one dingy bar at the base of the mountain, which closes early. However, it sounds like some recent improvements may make things a bit more interesting once the lifts stop.

According to this article, phase one of the new Tram Haus Lodge is open at Jay. Phase one includes a new hotel, spa, cafe, restaurant and bar. It also means a bunch of new jobs. Good stuff.

We’ll report on the trip later in the month. In the meantime, please enjoy this sweet Jay Peak action shot. Josh to the far left, me with the sweet yellow goggles next to him.

You can read the details here.

The move sounds precautionary – I’m sure that as an Olympic venue, they will have plenty of snow on hand – but it’s still not great news one month before the Olympics.

The rain that’s been hitting the Vancouver area is good news for Whistler, though. Whistler received about 15 centimetres overnight and expects somewhere between 20-40 in the next 24 hours. I can only hope this continues. So far, the signs look good: up to 25(!!!) centimetres is expected the day Steve and I arrive!

The application, which is free, delivers all the basics one would expect from a snow condition app: recent snowfall reports, number of lifts open, temperature, and base depth. But it also contains a live stream of comments and reports from folks on the mountain, as well as live webcams. It’s these last two features I would find extremely valuable. The Whistler report, for example, contains a lot of recent entries from folks saying it’s currently wet (it’s raining) but still very decent. The current conditions on Whistler’s site make no mention of rain.

You can find more details on the app here.

The Vancouver 2010 Olympics, Anderson’s fourth, will be his last. At the end of the season, Anderson reportedly plans to end his competitive snowboarding career. Because Anderson did not medal in his other Olympic appearances (according to his Wikipedia entry his best finish was a fifth-place finish in the 2006 snowboard cross event), he’s really gunning for a medal now. He seems confident, feels good, and believes his technology is in the right place. (It’s interesting how much time and effort snowboard teams seem to spend on keeping their technological advances hidden from other teams.)

Here’s hoping Jasey-Jay’s last season ends with a great showing in Van City.

(Photo courtesy of jaseyjay.com)

Intrawest partially or fully outright owns many popular ski resorts in North America, including Steamboat, Ontario’s Blue Mountain and Whistler Blackcomb. Vancouver’s Olympic Organizing Committee has said the issue will not effect any events to be held there, regardless of the outcome of the situation. Moreover, Intrawest has also said that regardless of the outcome, it will be business as usual to any visitors of the resort (good news for me, as I’m heading there in about three weeks).

So how did Intrawest end up here? This article in the Toronto Star points to the real estate market. Intrawest reportedly relies a great deal on luxury home sales, and a drop in sales combined with a devaluation of the market in general has conspired to create difficult market conditions for the company. The loan was reportedly procured to help finance the acquisition of Intrawest by Fortress Investment Group, a New York-based asset management firm.

Of course, it’s not like Intrawest is the only company in this space that has had issues since the economic downturn. Luxury properties and ski vacations often fall victim to family spending cuts early when budgets get trimmed. As an analyst in the Toronto Star piece said, “It’s not just Intrawest that’s suffering. They’re in a market with lousy fundamentals and disappearing margins.” If Intrawest is having a problems in an Olympic year at one resort and a decent start at most of their others, I hate to think of how other resort operators are doing.