Well, last Wednesday I packed up some camera gear, and headed up to Whistler with 3 friends to shoot some footage.
By the time we got the the parking lot, the snow was coming down like... like... well like alot. I took the camera up anyway, just in case the snowing stopped . And of course, it snowed more! Over 6 hours of riding, I didn't take it out of the backpack once for fear of snow getting in it somewhere. I made the mistake of sitting my gloves in the snow for 30 seconds while I did my bindings up, and found a half inch of snow in them when I put them back on. It was pretty windy too (the peak had a 60kph wind warning, although it was more like 30, plus total white out conditions). I decided the camera was just safer tucked away, as I don't have a full rain cover for it.

The riding however, was just awsome. It was a huge dump with freshies all over the hill. As I said, the peak/ridge/bowl area was almost unridable due to about 15 feet of visibility. The snow on the ground in that area had 0 definition, except at your feet. Too dangerous to have fun on, when you can't see a ditch until you drop into it. Plus snow stings the face pretty hard at 30+kph.

The only sucky part of the day was getting up at 4:30am so we could get first chair (but didn't anyway).
Back to Cypress again this week. Just thought I'd share with all the snowbaorders/skiiers out there.

I was just in Whistler this weekend. Spend most of the time on the peak -- complete whiteouts, but the snow was AWESOME! I had a really good time. Brough the cameras too, but it didn't leave the hotel room (with the exception of the last day when I took my SLR out to get a few shots of the puddle of water at the bottom of the Wizard chair!).

I wish I had a nice little scuba case for the camera so I wouldn't have to worry about weather. I still maintain that if Fischer Price made DV cameras, they would be the toughest around!

Wants me to go out and ski too.... But no snow around for a 1000
miles or more (or something).

Rob,

Here's an old West Texas trick (West Texas is as flat as the Netherlands). Go find an overpass or dike with grass on the sloped side, get a sled-size piece of cardboard, and voila! Cardboarding!

Those mountain-types don't know what they're missing.

Perhaps I'll try that out with enough booze.... :) Thanks.

AAAAHHHH!! Cypress, Grouse, and Seymore just closed!!!
I think Seymore has a tow rope and one run going. This brutally sucks.

We were up at Whistler January 5 for a week. You guys had the snowfall; we got the fallout. It was still good and there were no crowds! We are going back up February 9, four days after we return from Hong Kong. :-) Does skiing and jet lag go together?
Sandy

We are completely blown Dylan......
It looked like it was going to turn around a month ago but that was about it.

At Alyeska the terrain park isn't even open..........
This place is the home mountain of Tommy Moe, and has the "North Face" (the slope the high priced jackets were named after).

It's dismal at best right now........

Now if I only had the time and money for helicopter skiing, that would be another story........

We've only been out snowmaching twice so far this year, and the last time we "forced it" since we drove the whole way out there.

Ugg...........

Yep, this is the worst season I've seen in the 11 years I've been boarding. OK, many of those years were in Ontario, where it's a whole lot colder but it still sucks.
At this point, Cardboarding looks good!

We've got a trip to Big White planned at the end of Feb. Maybe it won't suck. My parents have a condo there. So far their rental revenue is about 60% of what it was last year. Which means I'll have little trouble mooching a few free nights out of them! :)

Craig Kelly, one of the most influential snowboarders of the 80s was killed near Revelstoke BC, Canada.
http://snowboard.mountainzone.com/craig_kelly.html

Craig will be sadly missed in the snowboarding world, especially his handplants in the pipe wearing fluro jackets.

Yep. :(
That was last Tuesday I think. One of the guys I went to Whistler with was supposed to go on a backcountry trip with Kelly as a guide in Feb.

Sounds like you fellows need to snag some decent damp weather camera gear so you don't miss the good shots.
For instance~http://www.epiccam.com/ or http://www.wavelengthstudios.com/ebay/dvf4/index.htm
have reasonable priced gear or even a kata bag or something. A good snowing will produce some great pics if you can get them without ruining your cam's.

Kenn, some neat solutions there. The Epiccam.com ones look great and reasonably priced too! Don't think their biggest one will fit a XL1 though, although it'd be great for GL1/2, VX2000 owners. Thanks for the link!

It was 38 degrees and raining today.....

Anchorage is now the worlds largest skating rink !

You all need to book some tickets and head over here. All the resorts are rocking many with over 3 meters of cover and lots of storms rolling in from outta Siberia. My only problem is I'm having problems getting to the mountains with work at the moment.

Cypress had 3 days of snow and reopened. I'm sure it's going to rock. :P (sarcasm)

I'm supposed to be in Niseko (north island of Japan. Snows tons up there) right now, work piles up right in my way... but, it wasn't too bad. For the past 3 days, we've been shooting this a documentary about this veteran back-country skier. He's 99 year old !! Miura Keizo is the crazy gramps. Our part of the documentary piece was his ordinary life in Tokyo. (dull) First impression of him was just an other old guy in the neiborhood. He lives in a normal house in a normal Tokyo neiborhood. Nothing fancy. You this guy on a ski video, you're thinking 'this guy is NOT 99 years old' And when he talks about skis, his eyes are more lively than the average Japanese high school student nowadays. maybe not a clear comparison.

Anyway he's having a family reunion up at Chamonix, France, to pull off a 4 generation family ski trip. whatever. (a different crew does the Chamonix shoot... damn!)
Better get some snow myself!!
Takeshi

Question: What kinda backpack do you guys use for the xl1 on winter mountains?

I use a Dakine snowboarding backpack, and stuff clothes around the XL1 to keep it snug. Only did it once. If I planned on doing more shooting on the hill, I'd get a bag with more protection.

I went to Cypress a few days ago. They only had 4 runs open. It was sad. At the bottom of the runs the snow was brown. But they had a promo where they were giving away free lift tickets for everyone purchased, so I figure it was like going for half price.

You guys are making me very uneasy. We leave for YVR and Whistler tomorrow. Well, maybe I can shoot in the Village.
Sandy

All I can say is "Good luck!"

There's still plenty of snow at Whistler. If you plan on shooting people riding, I'd hope for clear weather. Whistler is notorious for poor visibility. I think I've been there once in the last 3 years and had perfect vis.

How long are you going to be here? I'm probably going back up riding on the 12th or 13th.

Dylan, we plan on being there until the 15th (the day we leave like very early in the morning). We've encountered tons of different weather conditions in the nearly 20 years we've been skiing Whistler. When we were up the week of January 5 the conditons were good for shooting; I got a little of my wife skiing down Rock and Roll around noon. We spend most of our time on Blackcomb and ski R&R and that area to avoid the crowds. Shadows can be a problem, especially as I am still learning the GL2. A bigger problem is I get hyper about skiing and not as much about shooting when the conditions are good for both. :-)
Maybe we will cross tracks,
Sandy