After a long and dry season and scraping around on ice all of February it was such a joy to come back to good od Whistler, the way we remember it from Old School days.

I had been on a road trip through the Okanagan, Nelson and finally Golden and Kickinghorse. The skiing in Rogers pass as well as KHMR was fantastic. It felt like a bummer coming back to the wet coast. But then, the unexpected happenned. The freezing level went down to the valley and it started dumping large, and dumping , and dumping. Whistler received an incredible 180cm in one week. Friday April 8th we made it back to Whistler’s old country. We decided to head up Whistler rather than Blackcomb that day, simply because of old nostalgia perhaps when we remembered the good ol days of plentiful snow. Also, Whistler’s topography is much more conducive to finding pow later after the obvious spots get all tracked out.

And so it was. The patrol managed to get the T-bars open early that day. This was like a step back in time for all us “ old school “ types. Immediately after the opening , someone that knew the mountain well made a fine travese through the whiteout towards Boomer and Harmony bowls. The rest, well it was epic ! We did laps after laps in Harmony and boomer followin the travewrse and doing “ déjà vu “ runs that brought memories back 20 years or so. It was the Harmony lift, after all, that ruined Whistler in so many local’s eyes. With the coming of Harmony every hack traversed and virtually ruined the powder we cherished so much in the past. It just became too accessible. In the past wer could always find our stash . Even a day or two after a storm there was an unskied line always to be found in the Gunbarrells or even Boomer. We skied hard that day going out to the valley via Whistler creek’s new trails, then walking to dusty’s for a well deserved beer !

Saturday it continued dumping and we shralped up Blackcomb really good. We were there when they opened Spanky’s ladder, and the rest, well it’s history now as we did a couple laps there , but that did not last long.

Before we knew it , the mountain was tracked and it was time to head out into the backcountry. The weather was rather white when we left with Yusumi on our minds. Reaching the Spearhead col, Miles cut the loose snow and sluffed any deposits on the Spearhead en route. Reaching Yusumi and still breaking trail, the clouds parted, the sun shone on us and it was truly a gift like no other. Again Miles volunteered to ski cut Yusumi and so he went first as Kent and I spotted him. Then it was our turn. First Kent, then myself. Soon we were skiing thigh deep smoke , side by side, all the way dow, hooting, hollering and yodeling all the way back down to the Blackcomb Glacier. It was probably my best run here in , I’d easiluy say, twenty years or so.

Aaaaaah, yes, Whistler comes through , for the locals it seems , after the tourist high season died down. It was a karmic gift of sorts, as I philosophise about it now . Stay tuned for more as well on www.explorex.net