Winter is here

We have had an incredible opening week here at Big White. Following the excitement of opening day and the fresh snow that came with it, the mountain's attention was turned towards the opening weekend. Traditionally this is a very busy weekend for the mountain as all the locals (Kelowna folk) head up the hill for their first turns of the season.

The weather up here is terribly difficult to forecast. The mountain seems to create and destroy weather systems. I use about three websites to try and predict what is in store for the coming days and they are all as inconsistent as each other. The forecast for two days in the future can change from a predicted 10cm of snow to nothing overnight...what's with that. But the forecast for last Friday seemed solid. A huge weather system was making it's way across BC and they were calling for in excess of 10cm of snow down in Kelowna and 30cm on the mountain so we knew we were in for a treat. It started snowing about 5am Friday morning and did not stop till late Saturday night. In total we received about 28cm of fresh powder in time for opening weekend.

The scenes at the bottom of the lifts on Saturday morning were amazing. The tragics (myself included) waited patiently in line from about 8:15 for the scheduled opening at 8:45. As the minutes ticked by the queue grew to about 50 people all wanting to be the first person down the hill with 30cm of fresh powder. I caught the fifth chair up the hill and opted for the less popular run at the top of the chair and was rewarded with being the fourth person down the run. The powder was amazing...you could not feel the bottom as you floated down the hill. For most of the run I could not see anything below my knees it was that deep. And when I eventually did loose control the consequences were nigh. You simply fell into deep deep powder. The hard part was being able to stand up again in the powder to keep going. The next few hours were like a race between all on the hill to try to get as many runs in before all the fresh snow was tracked out and only the edges of the runs and trees provided new lines.

By lunch I was exhausted. I had boarded all over the open sections of the mountain and scored some amazing powder sections. I had made plans to ride with a couple of other guys on Saturday morning but when they turned up late at the lift I was not going to lose my spot in the line...there is no such thing as friends on a powder day...sorry guys.

Some more snow is forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday at this stage but that could change any minute. Hopefully it will come and with another chair opening yesterday the mountain is really a fun place to be. I have a whole new section of the hill to explore today... have fun at work!