Pacific NW/AK/BC 2017-18 PNW Weather, Conditions, and Stoke

[slowrider]

Bachelor skied like snow conditions in the Rockies. 10f at 9 and warmed nicely. Snow was dry and fast. Todays powder skis worked well in the soft off piste. One shark bit me on a ridge that I shouldn't have been on. Cheers

 

[Tom Co.]

Crystal - Monday
It was a mediocre day. The bad, Rainier Express was closed, and rumor says, it will remain closed at least through Friday. The gondola was the only way to the summit and was running slow. It is getting pretty bony in a lot of places. There were lots of small rocks in the middle of Lucky Shot. There were a lot of scraped off the places down to the ice layer in the mogul troughs. The Campbell Basin Lodge was closed. Now for the good. There was some good packed powder bump skiing in a lot of places. The visibility was very good with high overcast in the morning and then sunshine. Green Valley is holding up pretty well but you have to watch out for ice and rocks. Forest Queen had good groomer zoomer's. They were making snow on the lower mountain. We even took a ride up Quicksilver, [that took forever], which is covered with snow guns, to see what homemade snow skis like. It skis pretty well. If you're good at placing a turn on good snow and avoiding rocks and firm snow, you'll have a good time for maybe the next couple days. After that, go to Baker.

 

[noncrazycanuck]

big inversion at Whistler - spring in the alpine - now looking like no new snow until end of next week. At least there is a base.

That new 10 passenger gondola they have been working on from base to adjacent Peak to Peak on Blackcomb is supposed to be open for next year.

The old slow catskinner 3 seater is also being replaced by a high speed quad.
That was the last of the originals. When they first opened in 80 it required 3 of those just to get to Rendevous.
Dont miss those days.

 

[Posaune]

Mt. Baker is going off in a completely different way than normal right now. Instead of huge totals of new snow, there was a big dump that gave good coverage and then the sunshine set in. While there's an inversion going on and the temperatures are above freezing at the ski area, the snow has kept its quality. It hasn't snowed in days and yet the conditions were great on and off the groomers for the past three days. NOBODY was there either. I skied entire runs without seeing anyone ahead behind or along the way. The groomed snow is excellent and the ungroomed is firm but with enough give to be excellent for bumps. It got up to 58* today without the snow getting gooey. It helps to have the sun at such a low angle.

Here are some pics from today:
Baker and Table Mountain


Shuksan from the top of C5


The moon was out


The view at lunch:

 

[noncrazycanuck]

Whistler is starting to get firm. Many non groomed runs have built up some bumps.
in the Alpine still only the peak is open. That's strictly due to lack of crowds, not lack of snow. On most runs I've taken it's been just me.

Harmony Glacier and 7th were all running today but not uploading, expect they will be tomorrow
the ski out to valley does have coverage. Still roped off but it's skiable to base. Manmade on groomers down low.

it has been very pretty in the sunshine , it sounds like it will be for awhile.

 

[Bad Bob]

Inland NW around Spokane could use some snow. What we have is good, there just isn't enough of it. Here are some pics from 49* North today. It has held up well but needs some more brefor the woods are ready. It is a bit bony on the bottom and a lot of runs haven't opened yet. Crowds are horrible.

 

[noncrazycanuck]

Whistler,
7th heaven Glacier and Harmony ran Saturday, Now just Symphony and it's 100% access.
On the snow site says 19/37 lifts, I wonder where all those other chairs are ?
New snow expected Thursday. The usual complaints about visibility by Friday.

 

[noncrazycanuck]

Whistler has rapidly become marginal. Just frozen and rutted off piste, a short day
There is a lot of terrain open but really the best today was just groomed cruisers.
Too cool to soften the hardpack and the Dec sun is also too low to have much of an effect.
Again no one else was on many runs I took, I think that's because most people are smarter.
I'll wait for a re-fresh before another day.

 

[fullStack]

Went up to Baker yesterday for the first time. Was really fortunate to run into a group of retired rippers who took their entire morning to show me around the whole mountain. Lots of fun learning a little bit about Baker and seeing some new scenery, e.g. Mt Shuksan:

 

[fullStack]

Crystal skied better than anticipated today with about 3" of new over the ice and rocks. Green Valley and Snorting Elk Bowl had a few soft spots early on.

Predictably, high traffic areas off Forest Queen were scraped back to ice by 1pm. Chappelle's (CMAC) was in bad enough shape that it got upgraded to a black diamond with a portable trail sign. (At first I thought some prankster bought the sign from the Army-Navy store and plunked it down as a joke.)

Hoping the 1-2 feet forecast through Wednesday materializes.

 

[Tom Co.]

Stevens - Tue 12/19
There were lots of people, it seemed like all of the lots were full. Hogs had a pretty good line for a while, with a gatekeeper. The other lifts were not bad. There was no grooming at all. The whole mountain had a lot of small bumps and ruts . Even with the new snow there were still plenty of terrain traps. The visibility was pretty bad as it was snowing hard in the morning. I'm not complaining about that. The snow slacked off and the visibility improved in the middle of the day. It got worse again later. It really wasn't a powder day because the mountain got tracked out immediately and the bumps were everywhere. In the bad visibility, it was hard to get anything going. I started out the day on the powder boards and swapped out after only four runs. Jupiter was running, but it's very thin at the bottom. Double diamond Southern Cross we're not open. There were some icy spots. I actually had some fun runs in the cut up, close to the trees, in several areas. Three cars, deep in the ditch, plus a couple of spinouts on the way up. Chains required both ways on the way down.

 

[agreen]

Is that typical of Stevens to be that crowded on a midweek pow day? Maybe the locals were a little snow starved. Is it the same for Crystal? Thanks

 

[Tom Co.]

Is that typical of Stevens to be that crowded on a midweek pow day? Maybe the locals were a little snow starved. Is it the same for Crystal? Thanks

Yes, Stevens gets tracked out quickly on any pow day. Today was worse because a lot of schools are out for winter break and no new snow for a long time. Crystal is just as bad. However CM has a lot more good Powder terrain and more sneaky places

 

[snofun3]

I sadly lost a week's vacation and a fair sum of $ for skiing Whistler last week. Dust on crust and death cookies abounded, and then on Friday, the dreaded Whistler fog came in - complete flat light with nasty VERY firm conditions. Off piste was not doable except on ice skates.

Looking at their website forecast, it's going to be fairly cold, with at most 3 inches forecast through next Tuesday, so the place is going to be grim. I feel sorry for anyone who has reservations that can't be cancelled.

Next reservations are for SLC the first full week of January, and with Snowbird reporting 18 of 185 runs open, I may be cancelling during my 72 hour grace period.

 

[noncrazycanuck]

too bad about your timing.
Today finally about 8" fresh covered that nasty base and sunny but cold.
Overall not a great start to the season.
Last night's fresh may be the last for a while and the Christmas crowd is starting to arrive.
By New Years it could be brutal.


ps
the skiing was pretty good today although I would not be surprised if it was better at Baker ??
Cold enough for decent snow there and bulk of the precip I think was further south ??

 

[Tom Co.]

Crystal - Fri 12/22
The parking lots were mostly full, however we only waited in one lift line, which was about four - five minutes all day. It was snowing, so visibility was challenging. We ended up with about 2 inches of new on the car at the end of the day. The coverage is a whole lot better since we have received about 3 feet of new snow in the last few days. There are still a bunch of puckerbrush and rocks out there so beware. Chair six re-opened. Kelly's Gap opened up for the first time this season and had excellent untracked powder for a couple of runs. It was definitely worth going.

 

[Posaune]

I was at Baker the past two days:

Thursday was the day after a huge powder frenzy day. The entire ski area had been skied out and the word on the hill was that there was a huge crowd on Wednesday, but there was only a modest amount of people when I was there (no lines). The snow was almost uniformly good, but skied down.

On Friday there was a couple of new inches on top and the area had not groomed it, so it was soft and nice. The skiing was good and improved over the day as some of the chunks left over from Tuesday night's dump were knocked down and spread out.

Coverage is not an issue, there is around 100" of base now. As always when it's clear, the views were stunning on Thursday. Friday had low clouds, but good visibility.

 

[fullStack]

Saturday I took my 8 year old up to Crystal, what a day. Sunny, nice snow and hardly any crowds. Still a bit thin on Sunnyside though, we were dodging rocks and treetops all the way down:




Yesterday (Christmas day) we had the full crew and skied in the freezing fog. Bad visibility but better snow.

 

[Tom Co.]

We were also up on Christmas. There was still some good deep powder here and there in Northway, but boy it was hard to see. We spent almost all of our time skiing trees and treelines.

 

[Posaune]

Baker, today, 12/29.

Wet, wet, wet, and precipitating hard.
It was pretending to be snow on the bottom third of the mountain, but it wasn't. There was a reported 4" of new but it looked like maybe 2 in most places due to consolidation because it was warm. There was a good base that had some give and was not icy. The new snow was like cream cheese. I found it really fun to slop around in.
The snow level was dropping, so things are looking up. There were gobs of people in Glacier and it looks to me like there will be a big weekend crowd ahead. I saw several RV's, including two big trailers headed up to the ski area. With the amount of snow forecast, coming down the hill may be a concern.