When we heard that a group of fine skiers and fun people from Santa Fe, New Mexico we had met in our ski tour in the Durrand Glacier area were coming to Whistler we knew we had to show them a good time. When we visited them in Santa Fe on a biking trip, it had rained and poured. We didn’t know that was pretty much the only precip that the Santa Fe area was going to get all winter. Needless to say, with Taos and the Santa Fe ski areas looking rather bare, they were pretty happy to hit Whistler in the snowiest January on record.
From the Whistler-Blackcomb web-site “As of 10am January 31, 2006, Whistler broke the record for the snowiest month the mountains have seen since weather data collection began 25 years ago. With 20 centimetres (8 inches) of snow in the past 24 hours, January’s snowfall accumulation reached 469 centimetres (185 inches).
The snowiest month previously was January 1992 at 459 centimetres (180.7 inches.)“
By the time we hooked up, they already had a couple of days of skiing under their belt with 15 cms new each day. This day in Blackcomb there was only 8 cms new so we took it easy. First was a run under the Excelerator chair. We met up with James and Darren for this run. Here’s James.
and here’s Darren
After a couple of laps on Glacier the sun broke through and with that we were off to the Everglades in 7th Heaven. Carl leads off.
Carl again practising for the huckalympics. Flute, Piccolo and the Symphony Bowl area of Whistler are in the backdrop.
Then we take a trip over to Xhiggy’s Meadows to check out the conditions and wind-loading. Lyn finds that even in late afternoon there’s still a bunch of soft snow.
Barb on Xhiggy’s
Then we head over to Spanky’s Ladder. I take Bill up and over Spanky’s to the high entrance of Ruby Bowl and then down to PlayLand.
Then after a nice glacier trip and fresh tracks down PlayLand we hunt for more pow over on Fraggle Rock. Carl finds out real quick that there’s a good reason some areas are less tracked then others as he avoids sailing off a 20 footer to flat and decides to follow me down a more user-friendly section.
We finish up with some more freshies on trees hidden off Riders’ Revenge.
