re: 2021-2022 Ski Thread

Definitely a Canada thing. Test already came back negative so what a waste, essentially they gave me homework to do on vacation and pissed me off yesterday in the process. It's randomized who gets selected supposedly

It was a busy weekend at Copper, longest lines I saw all year. Still not too bad though, if this is our MLK weekend, I’ll take it!

About 43k vert this weekend. 30 runs.

Resolution Bowl is my favorite section on the mountain I think. The back bowls are freaking beautiful, but get scraped off relatively quickly. Resolution Bowl was still so soft yesterday. + No lines at Resolution Bowl.

Well just got back from Whistler and have some thoughts. Going to post a review below

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Whistler is a great mountain. It's still my wife's favorite ski trip.
They have the BEST Scandinavian spa. She still raves about it.

But frick Canada with all of their Covid bullshite.
I'm not going back until they get back to normal.

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Mahootney's spot on. Awesome village, nice stores, bars, and restaurants right by the slopes. But frick their covid testing as it was a chore to do on vacation.

Saturday- Drove up (4 hours) and crossed the border and got randomly selected for an additional covid test. They hand a take home kit to you at the border that you must do within 24 hours. Had to pull over to a random synagogue to figure out what the hell this meant. You have to:
1. Register the kit by serial number
2. Schedule a video chat via Teams with someone who watches you take the test. Appointments were available for 3 hours or later (say I looked at 10am, first available was 1pm)
3. Take your video test with said person in your quarantine spot. Took about 10 minutes start to finish. I didn't have a printer to print out the requisition form so had to fill it out manually.
4. Schedule a fedex pickup. It was 7pm already, you think Fedex is coming on saturday night or sunday? . Other option was to find a drug store nearby to drop off at, I luckily had about an hour to spare so got this taken care of.

Test came back sunday negative as expected so the whole experiment was a giant waste of time (probably 4.5 hours in total). I'm still pissed they gave me fricking homework to do on vacation.

Now onto the fun stuff, skiing. There are two mountains at Whistler- Whistler Mountain and Blackcomb Mountain. Advice I got told before coming was do one mountain each day, no need to switch mountains midday. Posting a trail map below just to show how massive this resort is.



Decided on Whistler Mountain Day 1. Rode up Creekside Gondola to Big Red and got the lay of the land. Started with a few groomers over by Emerald lift to feel the snow and it was pretty fast but could tell there was ice. Ventured off the groomers and got right back on . Went over towards the Harmony lift and it looked like this



Down the first run over in this area



Needless to say visibility was an issue most of the weekend and not knowing the mountain made it a little more terrifying. Decided to go over to Symphony Bowl and see if the weather was better over there. It was so hung out here for a while



Flute Bowl had actually pretty soft cold snow which was okay to turn in, got a decent view



After a few laps, decided to go over towards Peak Express. Took Harmony up and went over towards the Saddle which was listed as a blue but let me show you what it looked like





No fricking way that's a blue in those conditions. I started going down and my legs had to dig in further to turn because it was so steep. Two people ate it and their shite went everywhere, luckily skis didn't go off the side of the groomed area/off the mountain. After that incident, took Peak Express up top.




It was a whiteout up there as well and in this case I started going towards whistler bowl but had no clue where I was going. I came to an intersection and saw some cliff signs the direction I started, then headed back up until someone showed up. They told me to go the other way, glad I decided to play it safe and not do anything dumb. Which leads me to following that guy down who ended up leading me over a 3 ft wide traverse next to some cliffs to get to a run right under the Peak lift near Surprise. Almost shite myself when I slowed down and had to use the poles to move the last few feet. Snow was great for that entire run so decided to lap the area. Did Bagel Bowl as well which was a little icier but still decent



View looking up



Since I didn't want to kill my legs and getting a lot in, called it and took Peak to Creek all the way down. Rough blue run that is groomed up top but not at the bottom which means what feels like miles of moguls. Snow was soft at least but you feel it at the end. Hit up the hottub, made a nice spaghetti dinner and called it a night.

Sunday- Decided to ski Blackcomb day 2 so that meant also taking the Peak 2 Peak Gondola. It's a gondola that connects the two mountains, also terrifying as a passenger looking around/down. Got over to Blackcomb and went over to 7th Heaven since I saw it had a lot of blues on the map and forecast was rain at lower elevations. Get up top and it's another whiteout with no clue where I'm going. Followed the markers and glad I did since the snow was great on the groomers.





After a few runs here I wanted to explore more so went over to the Glacier lift. This was raining at the bottom, but switched to snow 1/2 way up so not super comfortable. Did a few runs over here but again another whiteout





Ate some lunch outside at the lodge. They were checking everyones vaccine cards and IDs who were going in for lunch, they didn't do anything to check if you went in to use the bathroom or get water. Got soaked eating outside since it was drizzling. Wanted to get out of that rain so went on Jersey Cream (who named this?).



Didn't want to get rained on so went back over to 7th Heaven. And to my surprise, the sun was out and it was clearing up top.



Lapped this area and got a good view of Whistler Mountain.



View looking up



The snow was so soft, it was like spring skiing with the sun out. Excellent area if the sun is out for anyone going. After hitting the same run about 5 times in a row and needing to catch the Peak 2 Peak gondola back, I finished up and made my way back to Creekside. View from the Peak 2 Peak Gondola

Anyone have any advice on parking at Breck and Vail? Will be driving in from Silverthorne
Best lots?
Airport road lot and shuttle to peak 8 gondola in Breck worth it or too much of a PITA?
How early to have a good chance at a spot?
Anything else?

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IMO, Steamboat is ideal for a first trip. I believe there are direct flights from Houston and DFW into Hayden.

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Agreed with this. Lots of easy to medium terrain, relatively inexpensive compared to the others, and stuff to do in the town after lift hours. And I believe it routinely gets more powder than the other resorts to the south, though I could be wrong.

Steamboat I think gets the most snow in Colorado besides Wolf Creek. The downside to it is that it doesn’t maintain the snow as well as the higher elevation resorts.

So go to Steamboat in December - March, and not in April or May.

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Anyone have any advice on parking at Breck and Vail? Will be driving in from Silverthorne Best lots? Airport road lot and shuttle to peak 8 gondola in Breck worth it or too much of a PITA? How early to have a good chance at a spot? Anything else?

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For Breck, I’d suggest airport road satellite parking. It’s quick, easy, and free. The paid parking can get backed up and you have to get there early to secure a spot. It’s worth it to just take a shuttle from the satellite lot imo.

For Vail kinda the same thing, but they have parking garages at the Village for like $35 a day. It’s a lot easier, but when I go to Vail I just park on the north frontage road for free, and take a shuttle. I also live out here, in Breck, so paying for parking is something I always try to work around no matter if I have to spend an extra 10 minutes for a shuttle ride. Not to mention I can walk to Breck’s slopes from my house. So take my advice with a grain of salt.

Breck parking has entered a new era with the parking garage. I don’t have a good understanding of how the parking is working now. Get in early and you should have good options.

Breck on Thursday
Vail on Friday
Undecided which for Saturday.

Day 3 at Alta finally saw some fresh snow come to the Wasatch. Took a tip from a local and hit some of the steep trees near spring valley and found some very soft turns, was even able to come back to that area before lunch and it wasn't tracked out yet. After lunch I spent the rest of the day near the supreme lift, some fun black and blue runs in that area to the skier's right. Anything under the lift is expert only.

It was funny listening to the locals call the conditions "dust on crust" because it would probably be called a powder day anywhere else.