Early Turns on Cypress
After a weekend of very early season turns on Seymour we decided to check out one of the other local hill, Cypress Mountain – venue for a number of 2010 Olympic events including skier cross and aerials.
We were a little nervous as we drove up the access road to the base area. At an elevation where there was a considerable amount of snow on Seymour there was little to none on the side of the road or in the forest. Our concerns were put to rest as we pulled into the car park were their was a healthy 30 cm on the ground.
The base area was a gong show. Construction workers were busily getting everything ready for February, the mountain was moving snow off of the car park onto the bunny hill and we were almost certain that we would be kicked off of the hill before we even started climbing. Almost immediately upon getting onto the snow we were approached by one of the operations people but all he had to say was to watch out for the winch cats. We were off!
This was Graham’s first big assent (well 500+ vertical metres) so we decided to tour up Collins to the base of the Sky Chair and then continue up T-33 to the top of Mount Strachan – both of these runs offered the gentlest incline. The tour up was quite nice with pleasant views when we weren’t fogged in. The snow was quite shallow for the first little while and did not improve until we turned the corner above the Easy Rider Chair. From here up the snow became lighter – for November – and the visibility even improved! After a quick water stop at the base of the Sky Chair we pushed on for the final 200 vertical metres of climbing.
Once at the top we had a quick lunch, de-skined the skis shot a couple of photos and then got down to business.
The decent was great – how could it not be for November 11th! We started off with fresh tracks down the side of T-33 and then ducked into the trees near Horsefly. The snow on the sky chair was fairly good – about 10 to 15 cm of fluff on top of a hard crust. We continued past the bottom of the sky chair and boot packed it to the top of the Lion’s Express. After a quick discussion we ended up skiing directly under the lift top to bottom on Bowen. As we descended the snow became heavier and heavier but we really did not care! We ended up passing a number of snowboarders and other ski tourers on Lower Bowen who were not having very much luck in the heavier snow – nothing like being shown up by a 12 year old!
With smiles on our faces we skated back to the car park, packed up and went home. All in all, a great day of early season skiing!
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