13 October 2003

Many years ago I was lucky enough to live in Whistler for 8 months working and skiing I have visited the place once since and didn't ski, but this time I was determined to get in some turns...

Hiking in the rain
Intrawest who run both Whistler and Blackcomb are busy getting ready for the winter ahead so I had to pick a route avoiding most of the ski area. They wouldn't have thrown me off the mountain but they wouldn't be happy if I go marching straight through their snow making! I hiked from Base 2 on Blackcomb, up the 'Easy out' - a green run to Glacier road. Not far up this road you enter the environmental reconstruction area, so no more traffic - peace and quiet! It is quite a slog up the road to the edge of the Gariboldi National park, about 8km, but my minidisk player kept me entertained as I hiked in the drizzle.

At the end of the man-made track is a small meadow, which also happened to be the snowline. Trainers swapped for touring boots and it's off up the hill again. In Europe I would have expected some sort of path, but here in British Columbia no one really hikes these places is summer (or at least hardly anyone I guess) so no path, lots of big rocks and a slippery river bed. The snow took a long while to get get deep enough to justify trying to ski up instead of walk, but at least it was snowing heavily and filling in quickly.

Skins and windlips
Not far shy of the glacier itself I finally put my skis and skins on, progress from here on up was much easier and quicker. The glacier had about a foot or so of wet snow on hard grey ice, very lumpy in places. The snow got deeper towards the top - about 2 foot deep at the windlip. The 'Blowhole' didn't have any snow in the base of it, just rocks. The worrying thing to see is that the glacier has moved enough to create a large 2m wide bergshrund (crevase) behind the windlip - hope this one fills in or it will create some real safety problems!

The clouds were ever present on my way up so visablity wasn't too good, but as I was preparing to ski the clouds broke for a few minutes. I was able to ski easily, making my first powder turns of the season, but the clouds returned very quickly denying me a chance to photograph my tracks! In the end I didn't manage to ski any lower than where I had started but at least the hike down was only half the time of the way up.

Words and Pictures from Tom Greenall - Natives Senior Reporter

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