Canada 08/09 – Whistler – Day 3

Day 3 at Whistler started at 7:30am again, although both Pip and I pressed snooze on the alarm one too many times. We were up and had finished breakfast by 9:30am, and were straight outside walking to the slopes. Unfortunately, the hotel’s shuttle bus was in for a routine maintenance check today and so we could not catch it the short distance from here to the base of the mountain.

The snowfall from last night was just truly incredible. As you can see from the photos from today, in the village all of the snow that had fallen on the roads and walkways had to be piled up in great mountains in order to remove it from people’s paths. There was just too much to be moved away all together. According to the snow report, Whistler had had 41cm overnight – a decent dump by any measure.

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We caught the Fitzsimmons chair up to begin the day, as we were all too hot from the walk to think about jumping into an enclosed gondola cabin. There were no lines anywhere – in fact, the village was ridiculously quiet for such a day with such promising snow conditions. Maybe it was just that the Canadian holiday period was now over and all the locals had gone home, but regardless, it was quiet. The skies were somewhat overcast, but clear sky broke through in parts and there was next to no wind. It was definitely warmer than other days, and so set the scene for a great day to come.

We got to the top of the Fitzsimmons chair and skied across to the next one up, the Garbanzo Express. Unfortunately there was slightly more of a queue at the base of this lift, so we waited for a few minutes before we could jump on. We reached the top of the ‘Garbo’ a few minutes later, and unlike yesterday, there was no wind around – which was nice.

From here, we skied down to the base of the Emerald Chair, which was one of two options for getting to the Roundhouse lodge at the top of the gondola. On the way across, and up, we heard some radio chatter from other Australians – it was the Taylor family, whom we had bumped into briefly at the base of Grouse Mountain a few days earlier. While we weren’t exactly sure which chair Andrew and April were at the top of, we soon worked out that it was the one we were on.

We met with them and skied a run or two before deciding to head to Whistler Creekside, where both Jasmine and Belinda were saving space at Starbucks for all of us. We skied the rather long run to the base, and placed our skis in the racks near the gondola. The entrance to Starbucks was not immediately obvious, and while Andrew knew the way there from the front of their hotel, he did not know the way from where we were standing.

The most logical thing for us to do was to go into their hotel, and find our way to the lobby – something that sounds easier than it was. First, we had trouble getting in to the building, with no easily accessible keys. From there, we took a lift up – trying to get to lobby level as per the list of levels pasted on the inside of the elevator… unfortunately, this elevator didn’t go to the lobby level!

We caught the elevator back to the level that we had entered it on, and walked along the hallways until we came across some other lifts – and the signs to the lobby disappeared. We decided to try our luck with the lifts again, and this time, they did take us to ‘L’. Luckily, from here it was easy – straight out the front door, and across the bridge to Starbucks. As silly as it was though, the bridge that we crossed was literally 20 metres from where we had left our skis – but in the other direction from what we had walked originally. A learning experience for all of us – none of us had been to Whistler Creekside before/been around this area.

By the time we were at Starbucks, it really was lunchtime, and so we decided to make the most of the surroundings and bought Subway to eat while the others enjoyed their coffees. This was a nice change, again, to the food we had been eating over the past few days and so was enjoyed by all. Lunch was relatively quick, and we were back out on the slopes in 45 minutes or so.

We caught the Whistler Creekside gondola back to ‘midstation’ – which was actually the top of the gondola, and so not really a midstation at all – and then skied a run or two with Andrew and Jasmine before they returned to Creekside to meet up with the rest of their family. Pip had sore legs, and so decided to catch the Whistler Gondola back to the bottom of the mountain from where we were at the top – the Roundhouse lodge. Ed and I decided to ski a few more runs, and started our last run closer to 3pm.

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Both of us were feeling rather worn out, due largely to the new powder that just covered everything and made even the easiest runs a real physical challenge. We made the 30 minute (or so) ski down without too much trouble, and had a quick spin through a great tree run that I found yesterday. By the time we reached the bottom, however, we were well and truly exhausted.

We caught the hotel shuttle back to the hotel, which luckily was waiting when we arrived, and checked our skis into storage. We returned to the room where we found Pip relaxing on the couch, and did the same for half an hour or so. We decided that we would eat in our room, rather than at another restaurant tonight. To do this, however, we had to make a quick trip to the supermarket to collect supplies for Tacos.

A quick walk to the supermarket landed us with ingredients for dinner, as well as an apple pie for afterwards. As we were lined up to pay, the check-out worker noticed something funny with the notes that had been used to pay for groceries just before. They were $10 notes, but they were missing all security features that regular notes had. While Ed couldn’t believe that anybody would create fake $10 notes, Pip pointed out that these notes were the least likely to checked by retail workers, as who would think to create fake $10 notes? An interesting series of events nonetheless – and we learnt some things about features of the Canadian currency.

We returned to the room and Skyped a little, before hitting the kitchen to prepare dinner. This was relatively quick, and we were eating not long after. The tacos were enjoyed by all, an we enjoyed again having salad and other healthy things instead of things deepfried. As bad as it was, tonight was the first night that we’d eaten food we’d cooked ourselves.

Following dinner, we watched an episode of CSI:NY – not Miami – and did some more Skypeing. We managed to talk to a few new people (hi Shell!) and some old favourites. Following this, we watched a little more TV before falling into bed – exhausted from a big day/few days.

They are predicting more snow tomorrow, but nasty winds as well. We’re going to see if tomorrow will be one of our ‘non-skiing days’ based on the weather, but will report all tomorrow.

All the best to those back home – speak to you all soon!

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