After a month of the most epic sunny and hot weather, it's hard to imagine that Whistler Blackcomb was actually scheduled to be open for another week from today. Summer showed up like a bat out of hell this year, flip flops are on, BBQ's are fired up, and WB had to close a couple weeks early. Luckily with the awesome weather no could care less.

But summer ain't all about burgers and bocci. We've got a slew of volcanoes to ski in a couple weeks, and it was time to see if the leg muscles still worked. We scanned the horizon for snow, and low and behold the NW couloir on Wedge Mountain was the place to be.

Now who to go with? Seemed nobody was keen to strap those boots on again, despite the fact that most of the people I asked are coming on the very same Volcano trip. But I knew one person couldn't say no... the guy who can't sit still, literally, because he doesn't have a couch... Ryan Bougie.

Bougie unpacked all his gear that was destined for Alaska the next day, woke up at 2am, chugged some coffee, grabbed me in Squamish, and it was on like Donkey Kong. Made it to the trail head by 5am, which is more than we can say about the roofers having a bush party on the side of the fire road. Chucked our heavy gear over our shoulders (yes I'm still touring with downhill race boots and Dukes) and headed up the 1200m / 3 hour slog up the trail to the cabin. Surprisingly nobody puked in the making of this hike, despite how likely it was while trying to keep up to Bougie.

We b-lined it up the glacier, and on a whim decided to hit the NE arete, a classic ski mountaineering route with an exposed but mellow ridge & knife edge. Popped out on top about noon, 7 hours after leaving the trail head, but unfortunately about 1.5 hrs before the couloir was soft enough to bother skiing. So a big nap and a few minutes of lude T-Pain impersonating later, we rolled into the firm spring corn couloir for our last turns in the Whsitler area for the season. Good times.

For safe measure, Bougie threw in a pond skim to really make it feel like the last day of the year, plus some slomo dual slaloming on the glacier and some icecapade grinds. As you do.

And just when we thought we were done, it took us almost as long to hike down as it did to hike up, putting us back at the car 13 hrs after starting. Again, more than we can say for the roofers.  3 of 'em decided to wander up to the cabin and spend the night, while contemplaiting what berries they could eat for food, what happened to the last beer, and how they were going to get back down that snow/mud section in their shorts and sandals.

To each his own. Get 'er done this summer.