WHISTLER DAY 2-January 7: Corduroy Never Goes out of Style

The global scene here is ridiculous.

Apparently more than just the Americans and Canadians know about the skiing up here. Everywhere I turn, I see more Australians, Japanese, Korean, and Eastern European people than North Americans. The Asians mostly wear flashy pop style outfits, and the Aussies & Europeans rock it more trendy than we do.

Style is a representation of your culture, but one style that everyone can agree on is what the slope wears in the early hours of the ski day.

I’m talking about those magic little grooves in the snow, the endless roads cast with tiny shadows from the corduroy that spans the trails. And trust me, corduroy never loses its appeal on any type of skier, from the beginner to the advanced, American to Aussie. One local put it best: “Corduroy never goes out of style.”

We found plenty of the velvet for the first half of our first day on the slopes. So far we’ve only stuck to Whistler, where more skiers tend to gravitate. A few test runs to start off and we boarded the peak lifts, where the air got warmer and the skies got sunnier. It is a playground in the clouds, and for a skier from the east, the endless acres of wide open bowl skiing make Sugarloaf’s snow fields look like a snot hanging off a nose.

One of my favorite runs of the day came on the Little Whistler Peak, standing just under 7,000 feet. The Harmony Ridge is a saddle that ridges Whistler’s borders, and different drop offs lead into the rather small snow field that channels down to the Harmony Chairlift. Pefect soft mounded snow line these ridges and chutes. Soft enough for me to bust through with my skis.

Unlike the east, the alpine temperatures out here are commonly inverted, meaning it is warmer on the summit and cooler in the valleys. It is definitely something to get used to. The bowls were sun kissed all day while staying at about 35 degrees. Unbelievable.

More day one skiing to come. Maybe doing a little bit of Blackcomb to end the day. Hope our skis are still at the rack.