Thanksgiving in Whistler
There was no turkey for me this year. Instead of sitting on a couch wishing I hadn't eaten so much, I was searching for untracked lines at Whistler. The trip started at 3am on Thursday morning. We skied Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. (If you're interested in the skiing aspect of it, you can check out the post on cascadeskier.com.)
We stayed in the Fairmont Chateau Whistler. Incredible. I'll never be able to afford that during the regular season, but we got a huge early season discount. It's one of the nicest hotels I've ever stayed in (probably a notch under the Loews Hotel in Philly.) I went up with some guys I didn't really know (Andriy and Alex), but they turned out to be great ski buddies. While we were there, we met up with another Microsoftie (Peter) for dinner and drinks on Friday night and skiing on Saturday.
A few random thoughts from the trip:
- Nothing beats skiing with friends, but I really enjoy skiing alone too. I met a ton of people including a guy who works for avert.ca (possible connection for cascadeskier?), a cute ski instructor who moved to Whistler to teach and has been there for 7 years after teaching skiing and English in South Korea, plenty of UBC students with their $400 season passes, the Irish guy who pointed me to some great lines on Harmony ridge, and plenty of other people from all over the world.
- Thursday and Friday were especially good. The hills were filled mostly with advanced skiers and boarders who were uber excited about the season opening. Saturday was a little more annoying as the lines grew longer, but there were still some good off piste lines.
- We were among the first skiers on Blackcomb this year. They opened it about an hour before we got to the lifts.
- I was one of the first skiers in Harmony Bowl on Whistler. It was a surprise opening on Saturday, and I headed over there as soon as I saw the green light on the lift status board.
- The singles line at the lift is for people skiing by themselves, not for your group of two or three to split up and skip the long lines!
- Jay will recognize a couple of the photos. It's a run off the cliffs on Harmony Ridge that showed up in our Whistler video from last year. Last year it took a bit of convincing to get me to drop in but I ran it twice this year without reservation. I had two runs off the ridge with about 5-6 turns in untracked foot deep powder. I had one particularly spectacular line that you could see from the lift right. Drop in off the ridge, turn, turn, turn, FALL.
- Thanks to coupons from the Warren Miller movie, I skied for half price every day! Thanks to the girl from England who split the ticket with me on the first day. She's spending two weeks at Whistler and then spending the rest of the winter at Fernie. Why didn't I ask for her number? "Are you coming to see me or the snow at Fernie?" "Umm... do I have to choose?"
- This guy is my hero. He must have been pushing 90, but I saw him on the mountain two of the three days we were there. I hope I'm still skiing when I'm that age!
- I've been offered weed many times, and I've been asked a few times if I know where it can be found. This weekend was a new experience. "Hey man, do you have any bud?" I laughed and said no. "What... was that a funny question?" "Nope, I was just thinking about how all my friends would laugh if they heard you ask me that question." I think Jay and I smelled weed nine times during our four days in Whistler last winter, but I only smelled it twice on this trip. I'm sure that guy eventually found what he was looking for, but he sure started off looking in the wrong spot.
- I visited a couple new restaurants and bars on this trip. While I have a long way to go to visit them all, I'm declaring the Irish Pub as my favorite place in Whistler. The food is great, the atmosphere is fun, and they usually have some live music. If you give me my choice, that's where I'll end up.
- Being back in Whistler brought back a lot of memories of last winter's trip. Stepping into the Irish Pub was like stepping into a time machine. We sat at the table where the ladies had cheered Chelsea on during her Car Bomb. I kept expecting to look over my shoulder and see Jay, Tim and Chelsea sitting on the stools. I chuckled as I went down the run where Jay broke his binding. And standing on the edge of the cliff, I could hear Jay mocking me for being a wimp and not jumping in.
- Ladies, if I ever invite you on a trip to Whistler, I'm trying to woo you. It's about the best place I can think of for a date.
- Photos are posted in the gallery.
I took along a cheapo helmet cam that I bought this summer. MattM figured out how I could easily attach it to my ski helmet. Unfortunately the device doesn't seem to like the cold. It crashed repeatedly. I really only got one stretch of usable video out of it. It's a boring little green run on Whistler, but at the end I happened to catch a guy in the terrain park doing a backflip. The video is included at the end of the post.
All in all, it was an incredible trip at an amazing price. It's an epic start to what I hope is a fantastic season!