Christmas Day on Blackcomb
Submitted by amym on Sat, Dec 26, 2009
Winter is in full swing in Whistler right now, and a lucky few of us stuck around during the holiday to enjoy it. Santa didn’t deliver snow for Christmas. Instead, he gave us a crazy warm inversion that softened up the few-day-old snow on the mountain and led to a hugely enjoyable Christmas ski day on Blackcomb.
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Caption photo:
Ryan McRae playing around in Fraggle Rock chunder. Amy McDermid photo.
Ryan
and I became members of the Christmas Crack O’Noon club and rolled up the hill
at 12:15p.m. We started the day off with a short hike up Grey Zone and skeid
straight down to Coff-Chocolate at Crystal Hut. The Hut was serving up waffles
like it was nobody’s business and the place was packed. Coff-chocolate (I’m
trying to start a trend here) was followed by a lap down Fraggle rock, where we
ran into more Christmas Orphans (not actually orphans) Matty Richard, Austin
Ross, and Cheddar Watson. The
fellas were skiing speed and jump runs and we even spotted a lovely set of
their figure-8 tracks somewhere on Blackcomb later in the day.
We
declined an invitation to join them because we had a mission in mind, namely
something off of Blackcomb be it Corona, Husume, Disease, or DOA. The bootpack
was well worked in because it hadn’t snowed in more than a few days and it
didn’t take long to get to the top of Body Bag bowl. There were a few more
Christmas orphans at the top enjoying the sunset and downing some beer before
hopefully a big Turkey dinner.
View of Decker Mountain and Disease Ridge. Amy McDermid photo.
Disease
looked good, so did Decker and everything else for that matter, but we decided
on DOA because Cheddar skied it earlier in the day and said it was in good
shape.
Ryan looking down DOA. Amy McDermid photo.
I freaking love DOA. It’s such an
aesthetic line and also super fun to ski. It gets the end of day sunlight and
is a beautiful way to finish off a ski day. The entrance was pretty slick
because it looked like quite a few people had enjoyed the line in the past
week, but we could see that the guts of the chute were looking very inviting.
We skied down to the apron and the snow was perfect. The sun had warmed it up
just enough in the chute that it was nice, soft, easy to ski crud. The apron
was really taking a beating from the sun, however, so we chose to ski out to
the right and avoid the really rocky areas on the left as one portion of it had
already slid.
If this is what being a Christmas orphan is like, I don't mind.
Lakeside
bowl was dotted with packs of more orphans hitting booters and enjoying the
sunset. We skied a final few powder turns down to a groomer and made our way
down the mountain to turkey, turkey, and more turkey. I’m still full.
Ryan slashing a Christmas orphan schmoo turn in DOA. Amy McDermid photo.
I spy with my little eye.... something that is gnarly. Then some DOA action:
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christmasski from Amy McDermid on Vimeo.