Its a one bedroom place at Creekside - a few k's from the main village, served by the lower lifts. Jon and Michele came up later and brought curry :-D
hmm, I dont think I had enough curry on my visit to England :-(
anyway, the condo is done out with a lot of good gear so it's brilliant job benefit!!
On Friday we got up, geared up and went to the lifts - only to come home again with our tail between our legs - the conditions weren't great - minimal visibility, top of the mountain shut due to high winds and only a couple inches of snow:-(
Although I thought it was kinda fantastic that we are able to choose not to ski today - if I'd paid hard earned money to fly the Atlantic etc somehow I think I'd have been up there on the first lift!
Instead we decided to mooch around the village - Michele had faaaaar too much energy for us old men so she ran to the village via the scenic route while Jon and I took the bus ;-)
by the time we'd finished mooching (and watching Borat) there was a full scale blizzard which turned the roads to chaos - and this in Whistler where they're used to it snowing!This pic shows the two-way highway 5 or 6 cars abreast trying to get up a slight incline! A good thing no-one in their right mind was leaving Whistler tonight!
Rich got stuck in the mayhem and therefore took 5-6 hours to get there (normally 2h)
Once Rich eventually made it we went for something to eat down the road - we walked!
By the time we came out there was at least a foot of new snow - and all this at the lowest point of the ski area ;-)
This is what my car looked like in the morning!
but the sky was clear, the powder was fresh and we were in the queue before the lift opened!!! In fact before the sun came up!
This is the view from the condo - the piste on the left is the downhill for the 2010 Olympics
So did we have a good day? Ohhhhhh yes. The piste closures the previous day meant there was anything from a foot and a half to three feet of fresh pow! It was the most amazing day - unfortunately I didnt take many pictures - we were far too busy having fun
I'm finally getting to grips with skiing in the deep stuff so it was extra special for me although surprisingly the most memorable moments were standing in the lift queue....
When the lift to the peak of Whistler opened, everyone swarmed to it but luckily we were amongst the first. Whilst we waited, trying to stay warm and discussing our options for our line down, someone in the crowd cheered. Of course, this made everyone look up at the empty mountain in front of us - only it wasnt empty anymore. Right at the top of a big wide open slope, four figures had appeared, pausing only briefly before snaking down the piste in parallel, about 30 or 40ft from each other. The crowd went wild! Shouting, cheering and screaming, it was like being at a rock concert when the band walks on stage - as Russ Abbot would say: what an atmosphere!
It was one of THOSE moments that I wont forget for a long time.
Besides the main slopes is a feature known as The Waterfall - a small cliff about 35ft high in the middle and it wasnt long before we were treated to a few "nutters" hucking this - to standing(?) ovations from the lift queue of course!
....and then. When we thought it couldnt get any better a lone figure appeared on top of the ridge - away from any obvious line down - or so I thought - he rolled off the top straight into a 40ft drop - landed it perfectly - which is a good thing because he had about half a second before flying off the second 40ft drop at about a hundred mile an hour! Not content with landing those he turned right and jumped between a load of trees - another 40ft+ to arrive at the bottom. Wow.
As you can imagine, the crown went wild again - it was just like being inside a ski movie - and then of course, we got our turn - no big drops for us but sooooo much fun in the deep pow!
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
After an amazing day it was hard to imagine going back to the slopes again the next day but the snow gods had another treat for us - yet another foot of powder !! LOL We couldnt believe out luck - two powder days in a row. Needless to say we had biiiiiiig fun
This pic show the 2 days of snowfall quite well - this is Jon's van - its a big van too - Its a shame I did take of of my car cos you couldnt see the bike rack anymore - it took me about 90mins and lots of help to get it out again!!
The final word on the weekend has to belong to Flute Bowl. At the end of our first day, we used the new lift to head up to the in-bounds back-country skiing of Flute bowl. It took a half hour hike up the ridge but we were rewarded with a whole mountainside covered in untouched 2-3ft powder and not a person in sight.
Did I mention that I like Whistler ;-)
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