Welcome back to your mountain report with me, Kamryn.

If you have been frolicking out and basking in this January sunny streak then good on you. I too have been taking this sunny weather in however I can’t help but think, where the heck is this snow. 

Last year at this time Vancouver had a snowfall which blanketed the mountains in a glistening shimmery powder and it really did a number on skiing and boarding fans. 

All 3 North Shore mountains, Grouse, Cypress, and Seymour have seen zero snowfall in the last 7 days. What’s so hard about this for skiers is that the weather is cold enough to snow. We just aren’t getting any weather systems in to create that snow. 

With this cold blast that Vancouver has been getting, it’s allowing for snow guns to work and do their job. Snow guns work by freezing water creating artificial snow. Now in a good season where we are getting fresh powder I’m not a snow gun fan, it’s more flakey and icey than that nice powder that powder hounds like me love to surf, but I’m at the point where I’ll just take whatever I can get. 

Snow Guns

For those that are dying to get up on the slopes into some better snow and don’t mind a commute, Whistler hasn’t been bad at all. But then again who really wants to pay an insane price to wait in insane lift and gondola lines? Not too many people. But I did go up a couple weekends ago and it gave me my powder fix. Whistler is running all lifts and runs unlike the North Shore mountains so that makes for a lot of terrain able to be ridden. 

So what can we expect in the next couple of days? Not much. The Vancouver forecast is showing that this dry sunny spell is going to carry on for the rest of January, however we can remain hopeful that at the beginning of February we get some snow if these temperatures remain low. For those who can’t wait any longer to ride and are looking to make the trip up the Sea to Sky, the rest of January is going to stay pretty consistent with the Vancouver weather however a couple of snowy drops here and there but nothing major, but February is looking promising with the 1st to 4th currently showing a snow system coming in.