to reduce the steepness? not to drain unstable snow. I heard someone talking about this but wasnt around long enough to get facts.

Does anyone know about this?

Are you talking about blasting snow or rock? It wouldn't surprise me if ski patrol regularly blasted the cornice to make the entrance easier.

rock

Why the hell would some one want to blast a run to make it less steep? There's enough "less steep" runs at resorts.

If it's true then that's pretty lame.

yea doesnt that suck

I could imagine them trying to widen the top but to make it less steep sounds a little ridiculous. They'd have to rename it again as it would no longer be "Couloir Extreme". [V]

The Saddle on Whistler Mountain was blasted, so was the Frontier Pass run. Frontier Pass is a total disaster because it doesn't hold snow since they blasted some nice little fun to ski gullies and things into a big flat motorway that the wind strips clean of snow.

Other examples: Glacier Drive on Blackcomb (the cut for it ruined Overbite) and the countless green line skier roads that criss cross both mountains. If you want a natural skiing experience, Whistler/Blackcomb is not the place to go.

That oddball cat track from hell that cuts across Horstman is a classic example.

So what did they blast on the saddle? I have a picture from the 70's and one from this summer and don't see the difference. I'll look at it tomorrow.

Wait a minute I think they blew up this little gendarme because we use to approach the face and climb it direct from the glacier and then go through the notch to the other side and walk up the summit. I'm sure it's missing and that's a pretty prominent outcrop.

I must admit that I enjoy the access provided by Highway 86 (I guess they're calling it Upper Peak to Creak now) to West Bowl, West Cirque and Khyber's. When I worked up there one of the cat drivers ditched off the side of that in a white out. I have no idea where or how but they had to dig it out the next day. Ah, 98-99; what a great year.

When I borrow this slide scanner I'll post some shots of the old High traverse to West bowl and jumping logs in Spring on Jimmy's Joker. I've also got some shots of the bowl and upper Franz during a first run in pristine powder conditions.

So can anyone actually confirm if they did some recent blasting up there?

WB guest relations is great for responding to people's inquiries. If they had blasted the couloir it would only steepen it. I wouldn't see any value in blasting the entrance but who knows. I wonder what GSC CAnada or other Govt bodies would think if every private ski resort started knocking down high points and prominences in the mountains.

I'm heading up to Whistler this weekend. I'll ask my buddy while I'm there. I still can't believe the peak-to-peak tram. I'm not a fan of the symphony chair for that matter.

I've always thought they were going to put in a chair from the Blackcomb glacier ski out to Crystal Hut. There's the line out of Fraggle Rock that starts with the cliff and has lots of little drops the whole way down that I thought was cut for a new chair ages ago. I guess the crappy triple keeps people away and some days it's the best terrain on both mountains.

Symphony chair opened up some nice glade skiing that I do enjoy, but also attracted all the noobs to the area that was previously hardcore only skiing.

I want to ride the peak to peak once just to say I did it but I don't think that I will be paying an extra $10 per ski day to be able to transfer mountains. You can ski across for free but I almost NEVER do because you loose an hour out of your day making the traverse and skiing on that mountain works out to about $10/hr if you ski the full day. Makes spending $15 and an hour of time for lunch at the top even MORE painful. Thats why I just put a cliff bar and a redbull in each pocket and eat on the chairlifts.