First Day Of Cypress This 08/09 Season
Written by Tyler on December 29th, 2008With my birthday being on the Saturday and being busy I thought it would be best for Robyn and I to head up to Cypress Mountain on the 28th (being the Sunday) for some Ski and Snowboarding excitement. Both of us are glad we did. For those who do not know, Cypress Mountain is one of the 3 local mountains in Metro Vancouver area. It’s great for us because it’s only 20 minutes away from our home.
The weather was great, the sky was relatively clear with the occasional cloud at the higher elevations. The sun also made a couple of appearances too which just added to the awesome views. They also have a base of 142cm at the lodge which means some pretty good snow up on the runs.
Easy Rider Chair and Runway (bunny hill)
With being the first day at Cypress this 08/09 season we thought it would be best to jump into a refresher lesson. After all I did not have the greatest experience on Whistler the week before (Robyn will be talking about our Whistler weekend). Though before our lessons started we took the chair up to the green run Collins to see if the Whistler day could be just chalked up as a bad day for me. It was a good first run for me and my board on Cypress. Actually my Burton Baron snowboard hasn’t had the pleasure of riding down the runs at Cypress yet.
Lessons
I went into a level 3 lesson which would allow me to better understand the fundamentals of connecting my c-turns as well as looking at the basic ollie. My group instructor Craig did a great job with our group of 5 and allowed us to grasp a better understanding on turning for heel edge and toe edge. Let’s just say after my group lesson, Robyn was pretty convinced they gave me crack. I was a completely different rider after my lesson. Connecting my c-turns, going faster and being able to take much steeper runs. Robyn was impressed as was I.
Robyn took a level 5 (skiing) lesson and it turned out to be a private lesson. She said within her 2 hour lesson she learned more in that lesson than in the 10 or so years she’s been skiing. She was totally thrilled (and challenged) during her lesson and loved it. In fact she will be requesting that particular instructor for private and semi-private lessons from now on.
The Runs We Did
Horizon Run – Horseshoe Bay in background
Robyn and I hit Collins (green) twice (once before our lesson and once after) then as she was impressed we took to the run called Horizon (blue) which was steeper and the snow was a bit chunky at places. Horizon was really cool because it offered a spectacular view of Horsehoe Bay and it was pretty fun going down at a new speed for me. Yes that is me with the black gear and white helmet riding down.
Once we got to the bottom of Horizon we headed over to the Eagle Express Quad Chair to try out the run Panorama (green). Normally Panorama offers an impressive view of Vancouver but the clouds slowly crept in blocking our view of our beautiful city. We took Panorama back down to the Eagle Express chair and meet up with our friend Lili (who works at Cypress). We took the chair back up to Panorama and detoured onto Crazy Raven (blue) which was pretty cool. It was crazy steep and freshly groomed. I practiced my c-turns as best I could on the steep terrain and really enjoyed it.
We took the Raven Ridge Quad Chair back up the mountain which leads into Rideout (green) and then into Panoramic (green) and then back down to the new Cypress Creek Lodge. Where we thanked Lili and headed back to the car.
After about 7 runs, and two great 2 hour lessons we both agree that day has been our best ski/ride day together. We are excited to be going back to Cypress on New Years Eve for some more wicked snow action. That will be my first attempt at night time skiing and I am sure I’ll really enjoy it.
