Thursday Report for Dec 10, 2020

 Today was my first morning shift this season Hosting at the Whistler Village Base. Not much to do. Just asked a few people to raise their masks over their mouth and nose and answered a few questions. Pretty quiet. The only Host that was busy was Elaine as she was positioned by the Whistler Village Gondola line. I was in front of the ticket windows. The Village Gondola had a lineup most of the time but Fitzsimmons Chair and the Excalibur Gondola did not. They let us go home early. I expect this to happen most days.

The ski out is still not open officially and has less snow on it then it did a week ago due to the warm wet weather. I downloaded the Fitzsimmons Chair yesterday with no lineup. You don't get to do this that often. It is good they are running this chair all day now.

Some of the runs up top are showing some brown spots but overall the coverage is very good for this time of year, especially in the high alpine. Mid mountain on Wednesday was very hard. We had some nice powder runs with the Peak and Harmony Chairs now open. The far side of Burnt Stew and the slope off Little Whistler into Glacier Bowl were both excellent.

Everybody can ski now as Day Passes are now being sold online. Doesn't seem to have made a difference with the skier numbers. No tickets are being sold at the ticket windows, Everything is online.

So far it is looking good for skiing with the numbers being limited on the mountains. Last year seemed to be a zoo a lot of the days compared to this year.

Note that the lower end of Lot 6 is now for Staff Housing parking. I guess with more Canadian kids staying at Staff Housing, instead of Aussies, there are more staff with cars and they don't have enough parking spots. Too bad as that is my usual parking place.

If you are tracking your vertical and lifts on Epic Mix this year you may find you are riding more lifts and skiing more vertical then you thought you were doing. For one thing they have the right vertical on the Whistler Village Gondola now from the bottom (took them 3 years to fix this), and if you ride Emerald Chair I think they count it twice. I also had this happen on Blackcomb but not sure which lift it was. I am kind of happy they have taking out the point system for achievements and the ability to see where you ranked among other pass holders. The pressure is off now. The bad thing is you now can't find your friends on the mountain by seeing which was the last lift they rode. This was handy. Maybe it was a privacy thing. If Epic Mix misses a lift you can't add it in at the end of day like you used to be able to. I think people were cheating with this anyways.

The weather looks good through the next week with cold enough temperatures to make snow and we should get some sun and natural snow. It would be nice to get a little more snow in the Valley as my lawn is showing again. Might have to rake the leaves.

Hike up DeBecks trail in Squamish on Saturday.

Looks like the fog is clearing on Wednesday.

Al and Rod trying to decide if they should check out Burnt Stew with the fog disappearing.

The answer was Yes and look what we found.

Al asks me "Are are you following me again?"

It was worth it. We did 3 laps of untracked powder.

See the sign in Lot 6 for Staff Housing parking only.

Hard at work on Thursdays again.