France meets Whitewater

"you'll see, it's a very different atmosphere there" my friend Michel Beaudry had told us back in Vancouver. Our crew of two almost Canada-virgin Frenchmen was coming back from 3 of the most incredible powder skiing days of our lives in Whistler. 186cm of accumulated snowfall in 5 days, that's a lot, but we had had difficulties adapting to the local culture : go fast or ride tracks.

On our arrival in Nelson, we were greeted by the french canadian couple, Nathalie and Loic, whom I both know from my home mountain of La Grave, and who came here for the season. "it's different here, but we are afraid you won't get as much snow as where you come from," and after a few local beers at the Royal, they let us sleep on those gloomy words.

But then, after having rented some touring gear from Roam, we followed our guides on the mountain. Bluebird day, Nathalie explains Whitewater's horseshoe geography : walk on the ridges, get into couloirs, jump cliff, track fresh powder. She obviously knows what we are looking for...

First impressions from the first climb : people are nice and easily chat and ask what you are heading for, where you come from, etc. Contrast with busier places where even your best friends can disappear in front of you to eat powder faster.

But most impressive are the caked trees, those snow ghost that for us are like movie sets, things we barely thought really existed. Nathalie tease us : "when French people come here they are like Oooh, the trees, and when we come to France we are like Oooh, the glaciers!" I dont know about the glacier thing for you, but for us those trees are appealing, I must have 200 pictures from this first day in the ghost forest above Whitewater as we walk toward the Ymir peak.

The rest is classic skiing day, with a quality of snow I seldom had the chance to witness more than two days after the last fall. Fresh turns with light powder face shots, big cliff jumps with over the head receptions, crazy pillow lines and tree skiing at its best. The fact that we had to earn all this with 15 to 60mn walks only made things better.

Mathieu Ros - Ski Magazine