During college I skied Whistler quite a bit, but I had not been up there for a few years. Last weekend the conditions looked good, so we decided to head up to Canada for a few days. Although Whistler is much more of a glitz resort than any of the ski areas in Washington, the place does have advantages. The area is gigantic, and fresh pow can be found a while after a storm if you know where to look. The backcountry off the back side of both Whistler and Blackcomb is incredible. There’s not many cable served areas in North America where you can get high into this kind of vast alpine from town, in a matter of minutes.
Finding some light stuff in the Whistler backcountry.
We drove up late Thursday night, and skied in the ski area Friday. Saturday the avalanche danger was rated down — we had a great day getting some nice pow. We skied near Flute and Oboe peaks, which hold some safe tree skiing. The day after we did a bit of backcountry in the morning. Increasing snow and high winds caused us to mainly rip groomers in bounds for the afternoon. After a quick dip in the hot-tub (resorts are nice for that), we drove back down south Sunday night. Check out a few photos from the weekend.
We had a multi-cultural crew including snowboarders and even a tele-whacker. Here Ben surfs some nice pow.
Laura gets a few turns near the end of the day
Johan was visiting from Sweden, he managed to drop his knee into lots of nice Canuck pow.
Woohoo!
Louie Dawson earned his Bachelor Degree in Industrial Design from Western Washington University in 2014. When he’s not skiing Mount Baker or somewhere equally as snowy, he’s thinking about new products to make ski mountaineering more fun and safe.
