Pacific NW/AK/BC Whistler - When to go

[James]

Or just due to the Altoids being Altoids.

I’ve always thought Snowbird should run a campaign of “Snowbird: For the downhill. When you’re tired of going sideways at that other place”

 

[surfacehoar]

Whistler snow density is depended on inflow vs. outflow winds. There are big mountains to the West that protect/shelter Whistler from the coast. During outflow, winds bring cold, dry air from the interior and the snow can be quite low density. During inflow, winds come up the sea to sky and typical coastal snowfall is the result. Overall, Whistler records an average density at the Pig Alley station of 9.1%

For comparison, Breck 7.6%, Snowbird 8.5%, Jackson 9.1%, Mammoth 12.9%, Mt. Hood 15.6%,

Note, that density is a measure of mass over volume. "Wet or Dry" is often erroneously used synonymously with "Light or Heavy".

 

[surfacehoar]

To add to my prior post, and this quote, here are both ZRankings graphs for best time for snow, and snow quality. Both are a scale to 100, where the scale is a relative ranking against all the other North American resorts.

View attachment 174614

For a comparison point, here're Alta and Snowbird, which have some of the highest snow rankings:

View attachment 174616

View attachment 174617

These Zranking charts are somewhat flawed. They consider the snowfall as well as base depth across the entire mountain, peak to base. Which is why you see a discrepancy between Snowbird and Alta. Also why you see resorts like Whistler and Revelstoke scored so low. There are also other factors like slope aspect, latitude, temperature?, built in, but missing factors like cloud cover, snowpack temperature, wind, daylight hours, humidity.

I can see the arguments for both sides. However I think to paint a better picture bigger resorts should be split into upper and lower mountain.

 

[dbostedo]

I can see the arguments for both sides. However I think to paint a better picture bigger resorts should be split into upper and lower mountain.

I'd agree... but that's a lot of work and a lot to ask; There's likely a dearth of data to support that kind of split... and it would just involve even more of their staff knowledge and gut feel for things - which is probably not where you want things to go. I don't anyway.