Excellent spring skiing at Whistler, B.C.

Billowing clouds added to dramatic mountain scenery

by Keith and Heather Nicol    

On Saturday, April 25 we headed to Whistler with daughter Kristie and her boyfriend Eric in tow.   Through the week the forecast for Saturday had alternated between sunny and 6 C at top to 10 cm of snow and-3 C at the summit. April is a time of changeable weather in coastal B.C. where one day you might have great spring conditions and the next day you might be skiing powder. As it turned out we had a sun/cloud mix with highs of -1 C or so in the alpine which gave us great packed powder skiing up high and good corn snow skiing at mid mountain. Since only Whistler is open at this time of year we parked at Creekside which we like since it means a short walk from the covered parking lot to the lifts.

Kristie skiing packed powder in Harmony Bowl

    We started by heading up to the Peak and trying the “Upper Peak to Creek “ run which gave us an idea of what the conditions were like from the summit to the base of the Big Red Express. We were pleased that conditions were good all the way down with packed powder skiing at the top changing to very turnable spring snow down lower. We sampled just about all the lifts on this day including the T-bars, Harmony 6 Express, and Peak Express and found conditions were very good just about everywhere we skied.  Some of our best skiing was on the T-bars but we also did several runs on Peak as well. There was abit of powder left from snowfalls earlier in the week but generally we skied the groomed runs which were in very good shape. There are some great spring skiing deals at Whistler right now and we hope to be back one more time before the winter season ends on May 18^th.  Check out this web site for updated information on ski conditions, skiing packages and other information: http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/

Keith skiing "The Saddle"

Eric enjoying a run off the Harmony Express