Peek of the Peaks

Fri 28 Jan

The morning after the first day skiing is always tough. We had slept the sleep of the very sleepy. Now we woke the wakefulness of those with very sore muscles. Thighs hurt, calves hurt, even the muscles in my feet (?) hurt. Ouch. I had chafe from my rental boots below my calves, not cool. Fortunately we had painkillers.

Breakfast with all the trimmings (fried egg on a bagel and fresh coffee) then headed out to the snow. The weather had turned a bit nasty overnight, raining at the base of the mountain, but this meant snow higher up. New snow is great, but the visibility was not.

Slow, snowplough turns were the order of the morning. Still, the snow was very forgiving so when I had my first tumble of the trip (Mom, don't worry, I was wearing a helmet and pads and had my jersey on) it wasn't too uncomfortable. The sleet and snow was quite chilly so both of us wrapped up warmly in our most stylish headie/neck warmer items. Very dashing. With now only noses exposed to the elements, we ventured onwards.

For lunch we went to the only place in Whistler not run by or for Australians so not much in the way of vegetarian options for La. I was more fortunate and by this time was famished (precipitation makes me hungry) so made do with a super beef curry soup and rare roast beef sandwich. Delish.

After lunch we carried on skiing till the sun went down, with a brief pause for hot chocolate and brownies somewhere high up on Whistler mountain. Another great day on the pistes, albeit one where we didn't actually see where we skied.

After showering and chilling for a bit, we took a drive then a walk round Whistler Village. The shops and restaurants are quite expensive, sorry, extensive. And monuments and plaques and other evidence of the Winter Olympics all over the show.

A quiet, simple supper back in the apartment. Shabbat Shalom all.

Morning, noon and night. Day 13.

Sat 29 Jan

The snow from yesterday continued through the night, roads covered and hopefully a nice dusting of powder on the pistes. Saturdays must be a popular day-trip day for Whistler as there was a steady stream of cars into the village. So much for 'no crowds' comments from a few days ago.

Arriving at the Creekside gondola, oh, boy, yes, there were queues of people. Or rather, loads of skiers standing in line. Absent, though, was any shoving, pushing-in or unpleasantness. Everyone still polite. Even the stoner dudes in our gondola very politely shared their smelly Subway sandwiches' delightful stench with us the whole way up.

At the top, another long line for the first chair lift, but again this went smoothly, everyone waiting their turn, going one/one at merge points. Amazing, and quite a contrast to some of the chaos we'd seen in European resorts.

The morning was quite clear, new snow on the ground made for excellent skiing. We did some great runs close to the peak of Whistler mountain. Awesome. We were enjoying the conditions so much that we almost forgot to eat lunch. Almost. Dropped whatever we were doing and had a bite there and then at a place next to the peak 2 peak gondola. I was starving (fresh powder makes me hungry) so we both had soup and a slice of pizza. Delish.

Then, full of hope and courage we braved that overgrown pendulum swinging between mountains AKA the Peak 2 Peak gondola. I was sweating, butterflies in my stomach. All for nothing really as the cloud was so low and so thick we couldn't see anything. It was like being in a gondola shaped lift with windows looking out onto greyness. Score!

La says that this doesn't count so apparently we have to do this peak 2 peak thing again when we can actually see how far we are going to fall to our certain deaths. Rumour has it Sunday will be sunny. Yay.

We decided to treat ourselves to supper out so strolled down to a great sushi place near our apartment.

Scrambled, pizza and bento. Day 14.