Hey, this might not be the best snow year, but this strange weather has opened up a whole new set of adventure options, months ahead of schedule.
It's February, and all the snow in the valley here in Whistler has been gone for over a week. After a horrible day of skiing ice last week, I decided to go see how the local trails were looking instead.
With highs of 9C day after day, sun, and clear trails, it's go time for hiking and biking. I headed up to Joffre Lakes, lower Tenquille, Garibaldi Lake, and the Sea to Sky trail this past week, and found fantastic hiking conditions (although pretty icy higher up).
Garibaldi Lake from Rubble Creek is fully melted out to the 6th km (approx what you'd find in a typical May/June), with hardpacked ice and snow the rest of the way. The lake is beginning to melt at the shoreline, and the forest floor is showing through in places already.
Tenquille is always one of the first trails you can hike in the spring, and same goes for this year. There are dozens of trees down, so it will need to be cleared before you can push up on the bike.
Joffre is hardpacked snow + ice all the way up, with parts of the upper trail melted down to dirt.
While my ski pass is here collecting dust, at least there's a lot of other fun stuff to do out there like... campfire at the beach (below). I'll be heading out to some of the other Whistler trails this week, so watch for an updated conditions report here soon, or see more on Instagram http://instagram.com/emilyanthem
