crazy_t Posted January 16, 2006 Share Posted January 16, 2006 (edited) Skied BC in the lesser Flute area out of Whistler saturday. It is sick up there. There were 30cm overnight, 90cm in all in the recent storm, so essentially 3'-bottomless. We chose generally windward slopes and sub-35 degree pitch, also trees. Stability was generally good in those areas on a day that was classified as high trending towards considerable hazard. Informed friends said that the recent storms have laid down snow that was initially wetter/warmer and has progessively gotten lighter. No "upside-down" layers, and little wind. The skiing was phenomenal. Went with safe, educated, pleasant partners and had a blast. Trail breaking was burly, luckily my buddy Ziff was an animal and did most of the hammering. Something about "crossfit"... By posting just wanted to let people know that up a bit north and at higher elevations there is a lot of epic goodness now. As far as the conditions "report", it's not meant as a green light to hit the backcountry at will, but rather that the snow is good, is following a good trend, so if you have the requisite experience and are intelligent and safe with your choices out there it's worth the drive for those of us in the lower wetter places. Edited January 20, 2006 by crazy_t Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulB Posted January 16, 2006 Share Posted January 16, 2006 ... just wanted to let people know that up a bit north and at higher elevations there is a lot of epic goodness now. 1600m (5250') seems to be the magic number around Whistler right now. Light and fluffy above that, heavy and thick below. Low valley conditions are still pretty marginal. Skied Flute & Oboe today, and conditons were still superb. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philfort Posted January 16, 2006 Share Posted January 16, 2006 (edited) Stevens Pass BC was superb today (and yesterday) above ~4500ft. Pretty stable snowpack (loaded slopes near ridgetops though). Skied slopes to 40 degrees, good visiblity, lots of faceshots, etc.... Best skiing of the year! Something like this: Edited January 16, 2006 by philfort Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazy_t Posted January 16, 2006 Author Share Posted January 16, 2006 Will there be a sick video on your site a la the Kendall one? Just checked it out, that is some crazy music and editing! Very sweet. Good to hear about Stevens too. I've been trying to find good news from around here for the last week, that is definitely good news. Good days like this weekend are epic redemption! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philfort Posted January 16, 2006 Share Posted January 16, 2006 Oops, sorry for stealing your thread, haha... As often is the case, epic days means hardly any pics or footage (probably has something to do your thread title ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazy_t Posted January 16, 2006 Author Share Posted January 16, 2006 Here's a link to some saturday Whistler pics from their site: http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/weather/gallery/jan06/index.htm Philfort-hey, that report and pic just made this thread tastier! I'd love to see more reports from this weekend. I've been waiting for these conditions for a year and a half! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fern Posted January 16, 2006 Share Posted January 16, 2006 I went into Steep Creek off the Duffey Lake Rd. this last weekend. Similar near bottomless powder conditions, lots of recent storm snow - excellent tree skiing on east and northish aspects. Up higher looked wind hammered though. Evidence of natural slides both slab releases and sloughs from last week but all snowed under the most recent dumps. Trail breaking up the road would have been epic if not for the 500cc - should be good for the next few storms though with the packing down by multiple parties and the sled. Friends who dug a pit reported 2 easy compression test failures buried 1.5 meters down Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazy_t Posted January 16, 2006 Author Share Posted January 16, 2006 We avoided the more alpine backcountry terrain for the same reason. We could feel the slabbiness/ set up snow up high in bounds, especially around ridges. Also saw a class 2-3 slide that looked to have been set off by patrol in Flute saturday AM, it was big, the crown covered a large area and was 2-3' and quite a clean break. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazy_t Posted January 20, 2006 Author Share Posted January 20, 2006 Sounds like stability has gone south up north... http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/s...true#Post536143 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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