Whitewater's new Glory Ridge Triple Chair
We took advantage of the great weather today to head up to Whitewater to see how the new Glory Ridge triple Chair install was coming along.
Rather than just hike the ski hill to see how things were progressing we hiked up Ymir Bowl to Scob's Knob and hit Ymir Bench to the summit. Had some lunch – took in the views and then descended via the south ridge past Dog's Leg, First Choide, West Ymir, and Prospector Bowl back in bounds. [would have been a great tour if there was 2 metres of snow and we had some skis - next time].
From the top of the summit ridge we hiked a few hundred meters along glory ridge to the summit of the new lift, here is what we saw:
Only foundations have been constructed as of today [Oct 02nd] however all of the support traverse roads were in to access the lift and traverse from one side to another.
The view down the lift was pretty nice as you could see the mountains to the west and had a great view of Whales back, however you could only see a few hundred meter and then it dropped off out of view as it was pretty steep [nice]…
The image above shows the foundation for the last tower ready for the towers to be placed in. A quick view and you would not think much has been accomplished over the summer but not unlike a house being built most of the ground work has been laid and things will appear to move fast from this point on.
Looking west there is a great view of Ymir Peak in the distance with the new foundation for the top of the chair…
I can only imagine that getting off the new Glory Ridge Chair will be twice as stunning in winter when Ymir Peak is covered in snow. The new chair will offer some great views in all direction [not to mention the skiing]. Although the new Glory Ridge Chair will not open up extensive new ski touring terrain it will still have the rugged feel of the old backside as not many runs are planned this year or next so there will be plenty of powder stashes for the taking. Only diff is now you can lap it much quicker than before and avoid the uncertain hitching at the end of a great run.
And finally the progress at the bottom of the chair…
There are only two more months to go until the season starts and there is no denying that there is a long way to go – hopefully mother nature plays in favour of the construction crew for the next 6 weeks to allow for alot of progress before she unleashes her furry and dumps as they are predicting. At any rate, it will open when it opens and one thing is for sure – Whitewater will have more of the same. More trees, more steeps, more deeps.
