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Day 2 at Whistler started early – 7am to be precise. We figured that the cause of the nasty crowds yesterday was being out on the slopes too late, as we really hadn’t begun until 10:30/11:00am-ish. We readied ourselves and were down at the buffet breakfast by 8am – only to find that the breakfast, at least, was just as busy (if not worse) than the other morning. We eventually found a table and enjoyed endless supplies of food.

Following breakfast, we decided that after our poor day on Blackcomb the day before, that we were going to try out Whistler instead and see if we liked it any better. Skiing out the back door of the hotel, we were immediately on Blackcomb (just due to the location), so we were required to catch the Magic Chair up in order to have enough elevation to ski across to the Whistler base. We were surprised to find that there were no queues at 8:30am (the lifts opened at 8:30am).

Even across at the Whistler base, the queue for the gondola moved rapidly, and we were never left standing in one spot for more than a few seconds. Although the gondola ride itself wasn’t all that enjoyable (supposed to be a 10 person gondola, but we were crammed like sardines with only 8 people – everyone with skis and boards on board as well). After we finally reached the top, we were glad to discover that it wasn’t windy, and there still wasn’t a huge crowd about the place. The gondola ride had taken nearly as long as the entire flight from Kelowna to Vancouver a few days before – all of about 25 minutes.

We skied first down to the ‘Red Chair’, attempting to explore as much of the mountain as possible while the crowds were quiet and while the weather was still nice. We hadn’t skied Whistler in about 10 years, and so were very unfamiliar with the territory. From the Red Chair, we continued to make our way across the mountain skiing the Emerald, the Harmony and the Symphony areas. After taking Pip down a nice steep bowl, that we couldn’t really see how steep it was until we were right inside it, we decided that it was time for lunch.

Tess decided to make her way back down the entire mountain to the village at the bottom – ski somewhere in the midst of 11km long. She met up with Nat and they ate at one of the many restaurants across the village. Ed, Pip and I dined at the Roundhouse day lodge – at the top of the gondola, right near the top of the mountain. Although there looked to be over a 1000 pairs of skis out the front, we soon discovered that it was relatively quiet inside. We ate lunch, still trying to figure out where all the people could be – or who had left their entire collection of boutique skis out the front.

Lunch was enjoyable – and cheap – with Ed getting a combo meal of a burger, fries and a ‘large pop’ for only $9. After we had finished eating, we returned to the ‘Symphony Ampitheatre Area’ to continue exploring the mountain, and enjoying the nice snow we had found over there before lunch. We were quite impressed that the crowds had stayed quiet all day – and were still quiet now after lunch.

We skied here until this lift closed at 2pm, and then made our way back across the mountain, taking lift after lift as they closed. We ended up taking the ‘Peak Chair’ to the top of Whistler mountain, the highest point around for a fair way, and skiing the ‘Peak to Creek’ trail which took us from very top, to very bottom of the mountain. The crowds on the final run out to the village were a little worse than we had experienced all day, but this was to be expected with only a limited number of ways down. Once we reached the bottom we took the Blackcomb gondola to the top, and skied down to our accommodation.

We returned to Whistler Village for dinner again, this time venturing to yet another one of the many restaurants around, ‘Carumba!’, where everyone had another excellent meal. Dinner was followed by yet another spot of shopping, and then we all headed for the gondola home. On our way through the village, Nat and Tess thought they saw someone who looked remarkably like Patrick – after making a fuss about it, it soon turned out that it was Patrick. We had tried to contact him the past few days, but he had had Sunday and Monday off and had not got any messages at this stage. He was returning to teaching the day after, but we arranged to meet up following his day on the slopes.

After this spot of excitement, we took the Blackcomb gondola back to the midstation (which took forever, as the gondola was running at a crawl), and then walked back to our room. We all fell quickly into bed, after a long day skiing. We hoped that the crowds would stay away as they had today, and that the weather would hold out as it had been fantastic all day.