Posts Tagged ‘powder skiing’
Whistler Blackcomb beats average annual snowfall
Whistler Blackcomb has seen 186cm (73 inches) of fresh snow in the past 7 days, which takes the season’s total to 1,033cm (407 inches), beating their annual snowfall with three months remaining in the ski season.
“Each day over the past week I’ve been overhearing friends and guests’ claiming ‘this was the best day ever,’ as they describe their day at Whistler Blackcomb; claims that are immediately trumped the next day with the new ‘best day ever’ claim,” says Doug MacFarlane, Whistler Blackcomb Mountain Operations Manager. “And they’re right. Whistler Blackcomb has seen an incredible storm cycle resulting in 186 cm (73 inches) of snow this past week. Couple this with our operations crews efforts; grooming 1,000 fresh acres each night and patrol working hard to open alpine lifts as early as possible after each dump of snow, it’s an incredible time to ski and ride at Whistler Blackcomb.”
There are some amazing late season deals available to Whistler, starting from only £849pp for 7 nights at the Tantalus Resort Lodge, with the resort open until mid-May with skiing available on Blackcomb Mountain. Call the reservations team on 0131 243 8097 for more details.
To view other fantastic Whistler offers – click here
First Tracks in Steamboat
When you book Steamboat First Tracks three weeks out to coincide with a client visit, you certainly hope for either a fat Champagne Powder® snow day or a sunny corduroy dawn, but today exceeded all expectations.
My very charming and punctual guests showed up at 7:45am and we immediately boarded the Gondola and headed up the mountain under grey skies and a tolerable 15F/-9C with a report of 1”/2.5cm of new snow. From the top of the Gondola, we rode down Spur Run to Huffmans to the Sundown Express lift, where we claimed chairs #1 and #2 of the day, and as we climbed out of the Sunshine basin, we popped through the clouds into a brilliantly sunny daybreak. Sunbeams peaked through the snow-covered aspens and illuminated the snow surface with a diamond-like sparkle, and the whole world warmed. Read the rest of this entry »
Big snow in Jackson Hole
With over 5ft of snow in 6 days, Jackson Hole is currently offering what is being said as “some of the best conditions in 10 years”!
Jackson Hole’s snow reporter had this to say yesterday “What a week! Yesterday I found some areas that hadn’t been touched for at least two days. Luckily, our mountain is steep, because gravity wasn’t enough to keep me going through 3 feet of snow when I tried to traverse across the ungroomed powder on Sublette Ridge. Instead I pointed my board down the slope and floated easily through the white fluff, trying not to eat the face shots that accompanied every turn. Conditions were fabulous everywhere, and with 6 new inches atop our already deep snow, today will be just as spectacular. Enjoy!”
There’s not many words that can describe these conditions so here’s a video from yesterday thanks to www.jhunderground.com and www.davidstubbs.com:
Cold Temperatures And Heavy Snow Across Alps & North America
www.Skiinfo.co.uk reports that the Alps and both Eastern and Western sides of North America have again all reported heavy snow in the past seven days over New Year, building on last week’s accumulations.
Flaine 6 January 2010
Snow depths are building in France with Flaine now at 2.7m (9 feet) on upper slopes, La Clusaz on 2.5m (8.3 feet) and Orcieres on 2.1m (7 feet). The French Alps have also seen some of the heaviest falls of the past week with St Gervais reporting accumulations of 90cm (three feet) and the Paradiski region of La Plagne, Les Arcs and Peisey Vallandry 70cm (2.3 feet). Most other areas have reported at least a foot of new snow. As a result of the new snow, the snow depth has already almost doubled since the end of 2009 at many French resorts.
In Austria, Kitzbühel received fresh powder on Saturday. Christoph Hirnschall of Bergbahn AG Kitzbühel told me: “The 20 cm of new snow on Saturday helped the winter’s atmosphere very much as they added a layer of natural snow to the already well-prepared slopes.” Kitzbühel had up to 45 cm of artificial snow on their mountain slopes before. Now the snow depths reach 65 cm on upper and 30 cm on lower slopes with 51 lifts in operation.
Record Snow In Whistler
The record’s broken, it’s officially the snowiest November EVER in Whistler!! 418cms so far and there’s still 12 days left in November. The current storm system has blanketed the mountains with over 250 cm (100 inches) of fresh snow in the past week. Operations crews are hard at work preparing more lifts and terrain to open this weekend as conditions allow.
|
Overnight |
24hrs |
48hrs |
7 days |
Snowbase* |
|
56 cm |
56 cm |
83 cm |
250 cm |
233 cm |
|
22.4 in |
22.4 in |
33.2 in |
100 in |
93.2 in |
Fresh Powder Skiing in Engelberg, Switzerland
Hot off the press: We couldn’t quite believe our eyes when we received these photos from Engelberg.
Are you in resort? It’d be great to see your photos of the pre season snow, you can post them on our Facebook page
