This is a collection of my blog entries about snowboarding.
You can find all the pictures I've taken here, and read below for the more recent trips that I have recorded in blog entries:
Whistler/Blackcomb definitely has a nice village, including a handy bus system to and from the airport or downtown Vancouver. Nice lights, and restaurants:
big bus with wifi
to small shuttle to your door
nice crepe/raclette/fondue/french restaurant
sukiyaki, yum!
We didn't get to cover that much of the mountain due to the bad weather, but here's what we did:
Our first morning, we got up and went for "fresh tracks", and early gondola up for breakfast up and earlier access to the slopes (albeit it was only two lifts and not the most interesting ones):
literally looks like we're going snowboarding in the middle of the night ;)
maybe not too bright yet, but early :)
sun did rise before we finally got up (30mn line for the early gondola)
Suck on this, Squaw!
they don't count in feet like kirkwood, but 6 inches is still not bad :)
Avalanche control is too easy, they fly a heli an throw dynamite sticks :)
Because they were not going to open the peak chair (kind of lame), we took peak to peak to cross to Blackcomb:
window to look down
By the time we got to Blackcomb, whistler was still going to be closed, WTF? Thankfully Blackcomb had top chairs opened. We started with the glacier to get a powder run there. It was nice, but not that steep:
T-Bar to top
Snow Angel!
Glacier
nice fluffy birds :)
angry birds, I mean hungry birds :)
A few videos of powder runs with Arturo:
It was then a long ride down the base, snow got worse as we got lower (due to temperatures being too high):
On the 2nd day, we went Heli Skiing, see that page for details.
The 3rd day shaped up to be good, but really wasn't. It was too warm, it was raining on top of fresh powder, and Whistler, again, couldn't manage to open _any_ top lift with real snow instead of rain. Arturo and I rode it for a while, the top of the ride was ok enough powder that would then run into wet mush while we were getting soaken wet.
whee
oh no, where did he go? :)
After a few runs, it was clear that things were only going to get worse, and Whistler would not bother opening any top chairs, so I gave up and went back to our room while Arturo, a glutton for punishment, went to get more wet :)
One run we did together:
The 4th day, I was supposed to ski a 3rd day and take a bus back late in the afternoon, but I had the foresight to call the ski phone and decode the very very little they tell you into "we're not going to open any top lifts today either". They even said "if you're going to ski, please bring your favourite poncho or trash bag". Whoa, really? Needless to say that I was super disappointed with them for not opening anything at the top the 2nd to 4th day in a row, and leaving people to run the crappy bottom. There was some wind, but it didn't seem like a sufficient reason. Either way, we got 1.5 days of powder, but the rest was just rain and no access to the top (and as a reminder, the peaks are lower than the parking lot elevation of many Tahoe resorts).
Anyway, still, it was pretty with all the lights, food was good, Arturo was a happy camper, and the heli skiing was a great experience :)
