Whistler

Hi all

Mike and I have just spent the last 5 days up in a ski resort called Whistler, which is located north of Vancouver in Canada. We stayed at a little bed and breakfast just outside of the village called Renoirs which was very nice.

We'd come to Whistler for one main reason, skiing. That, and a white Christmas. Day one, we wasted no time in getting our ski hire and heading up the mountain. In Whistler, you have a choice of two mountains, Whistler or Blackcomb. Day 1 we chose Whistler. Visibility was fabulous with clear blue skies. After remembering how to ski, we both proceeded to carve up the mountain, even venturing up to the peak and then leaving the marked ski run and heading into the powder in the Symphony Bowl. Skiing through fresh soft powder is awesome. It's very quiet, you can't see your skiis and you have to be careful with your turns or your ski digs in and you go down, which is a soft landing anyway.

Day 2 we headed to Blackcomb which is a steeper mountain and had some really good runs. This was also Christmas day and it snowed all day which made our Christmas very white indeed. Each day, we had a few stacks and were rather tired at the end of each day. We finished with some apres ski at the base of the mountains in the Village. Day 3, Boxing Day, we headed back to Whistler for some more powder up the top and more great long runs down below. We found a great run called peak to creek which is about 11kms long and took us quite a while to ski. We later found out our B&B host had once done it in 6 mins on his snowboard but this was when the mountain was closed to the public (he's a snowboard instructor).

Day 4 was our final day on the skis and we did Blackcomb again. We started getting a little adventurous and attempted a few black runs, did some tree runs and mainly skied medium runs. A few of these included moguls, which really aren't fun to ski down. The old legs and knees sure took a beating on these. Our final day in Whistler saw us head out on a snowmobile for a 3 hours wilderness tour. Snowmobiles have to be the most dodgy things I've ever been on. They feel completely out of control because they plane all over the place as the steering skiis hit existing tracks on the trail. However, they are an absolute ball, they really hammer along. Mike took a wrong turn and got bogged which I laughed at but this was nothing compared to my stack later on.

After dropping back from the group to give us some space to really open up the taps, I floored it down a straight up towards a big right hander but when I went to turn, the snowmobile had other ideas and I ended up rather deep into a snow rift and under a tree. I was so buried in snow that Mike barely saw me, noticing only my red backpack. I was completely uninjured with the snowmobile taking most of the brunt and after Mike and another bloke helped me drag my snow mobile out, we carried along. The guide saw where I went off, gave me the thumbs up and we all went along laughing at my stack.

After snowmobiling, we did a little shopping in the village then took the bus back to Vancouver. Still no pics up yet sorry folks.

Til the next update.

Dave
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