Cypress Mountain 2020/ 2021

[LeopardSkin]

Xmas Eve report...Didn't realize it was a holiday today...

Hey you should watch the news. It was announced almost 1700 years ago

[Alton]

Xmas Eve report...Didn't realize it was a holiday today...

Hey you should watch the news. It was announced almost 1700 years ago

Huh? Had to work today

2020-statutory-holidays-in-British-Columbia-BC-.jpg (84.69 KiB) Viewed 10121 times

[LeopardSkin]

Xmas morning report.

Soft hero groomers. A bit drizzly, but no big deal. Lift lines mostly zero to one minute wait. Eleven runs in two hours. Not bad at all.

The usual Scoobies were there. Buffy, Giles, Xander, Willow, Angel, Oz, Cordelia, Faith, etc. But not Alton.

Had lunch with Santa. Did you know he's agnostic? He wishes all WTF'ers a happy non-denominational gender-neutral winter holiday. I told him that's too PC, and he should be saying "Merry Christmas." You're welcome.

[drh]

Well, Avalanche.ca was forecasting 15-20 CM of snow for the local mountains last night and a further 20-30 CM today with a freezing level of 1000 M. At 6:15 AM the Cypress snow stake cam was showing only 5 CM. Hhhmmmm. Got to the Cypress parking lot about 8 AM and it was raining. HARD. HHHHHMMMMMMM. Luckily, it was snowing higher up and the temperature dropped during the morning. I was shocked at how few people were there. I skied until noon and the longest wait for any chair was about two minutes. There was probably about 20 - 25 CM of fresh powder higher up in the latter part of the morning. Had fabulous turns on the fat skis particularly on Tomcat, Ripcord, Top Gun, Trumpeter and The B-Hip. My best day of the season so far.

[drh]

One of the highest volumes of cars for an early morning that I have seen driving up on the Cypress road - considering it was only 7:45 AM. Did a lap on Fork with Skier Bob, Rob and Clay. Good grooming on the upper section but a bit uneven lower down. Went over to the Raven area and was surprised to find about 20 CM of fabulous untracked powder on First Sun. That was the good news. The bad news was that it turned to a miserable crust about half way down the hill. The lift lines were getting very long at Eagle and Lions by the time we left at around 10:45 AM. All the upper lots were full and 3B was about 65% full with a line of cars waiting. Meanwhile there were cars parked along the side of the road all the way down past the turnoff to the works yard. That is a long way.

[Roxstock]

Managed to avoid the worst of the crowds by riding the skychair and raven chair. Found some nice fresh snow in the trees off sky chair and pouched top gun for fresh tracks, same on raven.

Left at 12:00 and all parking lots were full and the road had cars parked on both sides all the way down to the switch back after the snow tubing, absolutely insane and people were still coming up.

[drh]

There was quite a crowd waiting at the gate at Cypress this morning at around 8:50 AM when they let people charge through. Skier Bob, Rob, Clay and I headed to the Eagle Chair which opened at 9:05 AM. The hordes of people that went to Lions were probably cursing as they didn't open that until about 9:35. It looked from a distance that there was about 150 people in the line-up at Lions. Only did two runs at Eagle as it got too crowded. Went to Raven and was the first one down Black on Black. Did that twice, and Meteor twice followed by First Sun, then Coyote 7 twice. Followed that up with three laps on one of my favourite runs. I was still getting fresh tracks almost all the way down when I packed it in at noon. My longest wait at the Raven Chair all morning was about 60 seconds. Why pay $1,000 for a day of heli skiing when you can get run after run in 25-30 CM of powder at Cypress.

[drh]

Had a nice morning with Jerry. Mainly blue sky and sunshine. We rode up the Eagle chair at 9 AM then went straight to Raven where there were no lineups all morning. There was a nice layer of fresh snow high up on the mountain, but a nasty breakable crust lower down on any ungroomed runs. For some reason the Lions, Midway, Easy Rider, and Sky chairs did not open until after 10 AM. Very odd.

[Jens]

Had a nice morning with Jerry. Mainly blue sky and sunshine. We rode up the Eagle chair at 9 AM then went straight to Raven where there were no lineups all morning. There was a nice layer of fresh snow high up on the mountain, but a nasty breakable crust lower down on any ungroomed runs. For some reason the Lions, Midway, Easy Rider, and Sky chairs did not open until after 10 AM. Very odd.

They probably had to do some extra patrol work with new snow, some pretty unstable layers right now. One got caught in a small one in Hollyburn trees yesterday, but not buried.

[drh]

Today was a gamble. Avalanche.ca had called for 10-15 CM last night but with a freezing level of 1200 M, and 10-40 CM today with a freezing level at 1100 M. Got to the parking lot at 8 AM and it was raining heavily. There was so much water running down the lodge parking lot it looked like a tsunami. Went up the Lions chair (which miraculously opened at 8:50 AM) and the rain turned to snow about one quarter of the way up. Had fabulous fresh tracks on Upper Bowen, then Moons on the next lap. Also did Slash, Gibsons, and Gibsons Glades for powder turns. The snow was a bit sticky on the lower part of the mountain, but still lots of fun on the fat skis. At 10:30 AM they had still not opened Sky chair, saying there was a problem with one of the towers. Went over to the Eagle side for some more laps before going home for lunch.