Canada 07/08 – Whistler – Day 1
Canada 07/08 – Whistler – Day 1
Whistler on a Sunday sucks. Whew – now that that’s all done with, lets get back to business. I was originally going to write that ‘Whistler sucks’ but time has changed me.
The day started early for Ed and Tess, but a little lazy for Pip and I. We discovered that the hotel provided a free buffet breakfast (that’s the best we’ve come across so far!), and so helped ourselves to many servings there before donning the snow gear and hitting the slopes.
Ed and Tess went out first and did a few runs while we ate breakfast, and returned soon after with the lift tickets they had also gone to purchase for us. By the time we actually hit the slopes it was close on 11am – a pretty lazy start considering the other mornings we had had. The slopes were icy, the queues were absolutely shocking (but apparently, according to staff, quite alright!) and it was cold – bitterly cold.
Because our accommodation backed onto the Blackcomb mountainside, we decided to spend the day skiing Blackcomb. Whistler, as such, is actually two mountains – Whistler Mountain itself, and Blackcomb Mountain right beside it. The bases meet at the bottom, but you can ski completely separate mountains by taking a different lift from there. We took the Wizard Express Chair up first, which happened to stop half-way up just as we were commenting that the neighbouring gondola had stopped.
Tess had decided that she was too cold by the time we hit the slopes, and had already returned to the room to meet Nat. Ed, Pip and I tackled the slopes alone. When the lift finally got moving again (after numerous repeated comments from Ed about needing to replace the AA Batteries in the lift), it was a good 10 minutes later. By the time we finally reached the top of the lift, we had hoped that the queue on the next lift up had dissipated – unfortunately, we were not in luck… more long queues, just as we had experienced at the bottom. Ed was not impressed (and neither were we, compared to say Kicking Horse, or in fact, any other resort – but we just kept quiet).
We reached the top of the lift, and arrived at the Rendezvous Restaurant (the upper daylodge) area only to find that the wind was blowing an absolute gale (+40km/h), and this was coupled with -15C temperatures to provide a very disgusting environment. The snow was deadly icy, and only covered in a small layer of snow – this made life very hard when attempting to dodge inexperienced skiers who swarmed all across the runs. We really weren’t having a great day so far.
Although the conditions were poor, the thing we disliked the most were the queues. As such, we headed for the Crystal Ridge Chair – Ed had assured us that this chair was quiet, and that there were no lines attached. We arrived to find that this was, indeed, the case. We rode up here and skied down, rather enjoying the run (although mildly icy in parts). We skied most of the way down the mountain, and then caught a series of lifts back up, taking us nearly to the top of Blackcomb. From here, we skied right to the bottom and had lunch at the Blackcomb day lodge.
We were all pretty cold and fed up with the conditions as we ate lunch, and immediately following lunch Pip decided to call it a day, while Ed and I continued on for a short while. While Pip went back to the room via the Magic Chair, we ventured to the Catskinner Chair – an old triple chair that serviced some very nice terrain. From here the views were excellent, and the runs quite nice also – ignoring the ice and crowds (which weren’t so bad over here). After a run or two, it was closing time (2:30pm for some lifts, 3pm for the rest) and so we skied to the bottom and returned to the room.
We all ventured into the village of Whistler again for dinner, deciding to dine at the Mongolie Grill – a restuarant similar, yet far more classy (and clean), to the Ghengis Khan back home. Dinner was excellent, and enjoyed thoroughly by everyone – the vegetables mixed in with the food was a nice surprise for the body, which had been lacking in certain groups. Following dinner, Pip, Tess and I went to Cows – Canada’s ice cream store – and treated ourselves to dessert.
By the time we returned home, everyone was more than exhausted, and we broke our usual pattern of dinner, CSI, bed and skipped straight to the bed part. It had been a tiring day fighting the weather and the crowds, and everyone was hopeful that both would improve tomorrow… we weren’t so sure, as there were 750 people here with the Far West Ski Association (from the USA), and it was a public holiday in the US to boot. Only time would tell.
I am a day behind in writing this, but will get everything up to date before too long. Stay tuned!
| Previous Post: Canada 07/08 – Silver Star to Whistler | Next Post: Canada 07/08 – Whistler – Day 2 |
About the Author
