March Powder at Whistler Blackcomb from Whistler Blackcomb on Vimeo.
This video came from the Whistler Blackcomb site, it’s not super extreme or epic or gnarly or whatever term is “en vogue” right now but it paints a good picture of the kind of snow year we’ve had here in the Coast Mountains. It’s been a good year, great even.
We all know numbers don’t lie and the weatherwoman goes on about La Nina currents every few years but as a kid I used to have looser ways of determining what made for a “good” snow year.
1 Early season is always the best, and early openings can often be a sign of a great year to come, but for scientific purposes i would pace the snowfall by whether or not we could ski to the valley by the start of Christmas holidays. (In recent decades, advanced snowmaking and snowfarming can make this happen in even a sub-par snow year but back then we relied on good old fashioned winter a lot more.) This year, we were skiing to the valley well before Santa arrived.
2 Does the base get up over 300cm in February? That is always sign of a good year and usually means you can hit all your favourite cliffs without worrying about taking a half-buried stump or tree-top up the butt. Currently WB has a base of 330cm. (Trees grow taller each year though so know your landings before you leap)
3 Are your hands blistered from shoveling the walkway/steps/driveway so much? As a teen i used to make my money shoveling anything that needed shoveling. Good snow years like this one were good for the wallet and good for the soul. The more shoveling i did after school meant deeper turns on the weekend. Blisters hurt much less when you’re knee-to-waist deep in pow.
4, Finally, and i learned this a bit later on, you can always judge accumulation by the outhouse at Russet lake. If you can’t find the outhouse, it’s a good year.
PHOTO: JD HARE
This is a good year.
~Feet banks
