At Whistler-Blackcomb, alpine lifts like Peak, Glacier, and 7th Heaven will remain closed for one or more days for safety reasons until [...]]]> On big snow days, those of us who have to work to maintain a lifestyle of certain standards are forced to sit in our offices and listen to avalanche control set off explosives.

At Whistler-Blackcomb, alpine lifts like Peak, Glacier, and 7th Heaven will remain closed for one or more days for safety reasons until the avalanche risk is minimized.  Live lift status is provided by light-boards on the hill, and those behind desks can monitor live lift status on the Whistler-Blackcomb website.

Knowing which lifts were closed on any given day is very important to ski and snowboard enthusiasts.  If you don’t understand why, I can explain with a story:

Tuesday is a really warm day and the snow is quite wet.  Overnight, the temperature drops, the wind blows 90km/h and it snows 30cm.

Wednesday morning there is 30cm of fresh snow, but Johnny has to work like a sucker, unlike Jill who has the day off.  Ski patrol opens the Peak chair on Whistler but avalanche conditions keep 7th Heaven on Blackcomb closed all day.  Wednesday night, another 20cm falls.

On Thursday, Johnny and Jill both go skiing.  Johnny heads up Whistler to ski his favourite lines from the Peak chair, but Jill knows from watching the light boards all day on Wednesday that 7th Heaven didn’t open.  She heads over to 7th Heaven where she knows there is 50cm of new snow waiting for her.

The moral of the story is that you can miss out on some great fresh tracks by not knowing the alpine lift status. To keep on top of things, you have the following options:

1. Ski / ride every single day.
2. Hit ‘refresh’ on the Whistler-Blackcomb lift status page every 15 minutes from 8am until 4pm.
3. Every night, call everyone you know and ask them what lifts were closed.

Enter a new friend – the friend who you can call anytime and will always know which lifts were closed, not just for today, but for the last 7 days.  Don’t end up like Johnny – use the Alpine Lift Forecast.

At the moment, the Alpine Lift Forecast doesn’t actually predict anything, but it will show you 7-day lift status for all Whistler Blackcomb resorts, which is a good start.

Skiing the south side of Paul Ridge, instead of the usual north side. Deep snow, lighter than usual, and huge hemlock trees made for a nice 300m descent. In theory one could continue on the west side of the creek drainage and pop out on the road at the switchback [...]]]>

Calum - Paul Ridge

Skiing the south side of Paul Ridge, instead of the usual north side.  Deep snow, lighter than usual, and huge hemlock trees made for a nice 300m descent.  In theory one could continue on the west side of the creek drainage and pop out on the road at the switchback by the settlement at Ring Creek, but who knows how dense the forest gets in there…

Paul Ridge Route in Google Earth

This was the same day of the Boulder Mountain avalanche incident.  The reports for the South Coast were just as scary as South Columbia, yet we were still able to have a fun, safe day in the backcountry by using common sense and managing the risk.  We don’t need the government to regulate the backcountry – we have the Darwin Awards for that.

Up/down track is green, a short scouting run is in red, and two laps and a bunch of good turns are marked in blue.  The Whistler ACC has more details about the hut. In Google Earth I find the best view is one with the Points [...]]]> Hwy99 / Marriot Basin / Wendy Thompson Hut

Up/down track is green, a short scouting run is in red, and two laps and a bunch of good turns are marked in blue.   The Whistler ACC has more details about the hut.  In Google Earth I find the best view is one with the Points turned off but the Path still enabled.

Marriot (.kmz), Marriot (.gpx)

Torres Del Paine (.kmz), Torres Del Paine (.gpx)