Jan 10, 2025 Conditions Report with Mitch Sulkers
The Savvy Rider
We live in an information rich environment in the Sea-to-Sky, and much can be made of this information to find very fine riding, even in periods with very little fresh snowfall. Here are some tips to help find the good stuff, even if it’s been a while since the last good storm.
Use resources to track temperatures, wind speed and direction, and sky conditions throughout the week. Easily accessible aggregators like Whistler Peak, Avalanche Canada’s Mountain Weather Forecast, Sea to Sky Gondola’s “Weather and Cam”, and BC Highway Cams–Hwy 99 (which includes current weather at Cayoosh Summit) are all excellent places to get up-to-date information.
What you are looking for is the “actuals” not the forecast. Total snowfall, temperature ranges (especially highs), wind speeds (especially maximums for extended periods) and wind direction. Finally, as it is now mid-January, sky condition, like full sunshine for days, will have a noticeable effect on solar aspects.
Naturally, this information is particularly important at first during storm cycles, as this will allow you to predict where the best, undisturbed snow is initially to be found. But it is equally important as a base to predict how the following non-storm weather is likely to affect the most recent snow.
Whichever resource(s) you are using, it pays to make regular notes to track temperature trends, wind speeds and direction, and sky cover–sunshine, cloudy, mix of sun and cloud to be able to predict where to find good riding conditions when you have a chance to get back out to the backcountry.
Secondary sources, including industry blogs and websites may also be very useful. Again, in our corridor, a number of guiding companies take the time to post very detailed information about numerous locations and current conditions. As well, keep in touch with friends who have been out and get a clear picture of what they have been seeing.
Additional sources, like Instagram, Facebook, and other social media may also be helpful for assessing conditions, but be aware of later-grammers and the like who do not represent current conditions. Avalanche Canada’s MIN reports have recently tended to have more information on current conditions as well, and are easily searchable by date of posting on the website.
So, in practice, how does one use this information to predict and find good riding conditions? Let’s take the past week as an example…
Preceding this week, December 23 to 30th provided just over 100cm of new snow at 1650m on Whistler Mountain, with most days having some snowfall. Following that, only 12cm fell up to and including January 9th, which then produced another 17cm for the 10th.
Weather during the period from December 30th until January 9th included a number of sunny days, and freezing levels twice climbing above freezing at treeline for a couple of days at a time. Winds generally were less than 40kph, which is the point that dry winter snow tends to blow with the wind, but there were periods of higher wind speeds both from the south and north which alternately moved snow above treeline initially from south to north and then the reverse
Thanks to a weak December sunlight, only the steeper south-facing slopes were affected to the point of some melting. This occurred especially at treeline and alpine elevations, as there were periods of temperature inversion keeping the upper below treeline levels below freezing for the most part.
Based on this, one could predict that alpine areas were likely to be heavily wind-affected on multiple aspects, with undisturbed snow likely to be in areas protected from winds from multiple directions and away from steeper areas that were south facing. Areas meeting these criteria would likely be relatively scarce.
On the other hand, most aspects with moderate slope angles and not directly south facing at treeline and below treeline were much less likely to be affected by the weather during the dry period. Since many recreationists like to head to open, untracked slopes whenever possible, areas with more tree cover and a little further away from short access were likely to be well-preserved, and this is indeed what we found for the weeks since the Christmas storms.
Each time we were out we were able to find untracked, dry snow in protected areas, especially just below treeline. Foregoing alpine areas gave us regular fine winter riding, and even on the 10th, turns were much deeper than the 17cms new would suggest because of the preserved snow. This has continued for the past couple of days.
Hopefully, following these tips will help you find some good quality riding, especially if you look for areas a little further away from popular, or easy access!
