I skied WB Saturday and Sunday, Dec 9 and 10. I had been in Vancouver 
the preceding week and watched the forecast go from epic (15-25cm 
Sat, 25-35cm Sun) on Wed to the piddling amount of about 5 cm that we 
actually got on Saturday. Of course, by the time I had to leave early 
Sunday, the snow really started up top in earnest, because I am the 
anti-snow god and I was leaving. As I mentioned before, book your 
vacations to start the day I leave somewhere, because you are pretty 
much guaranteed snow.

I stayed at the Blackcomb Upper Village in a small 'hotel room' at 
the Greystone Lodge. Do NOT book accommodations with ResortQuest. 
Email me backchannel for THAT tale of woe!

On Saturday, I had planned to take advantage of a very cheap (about 
CAD$60) all day "Summit Session" lesson deal. So I headed for the 
Wizard Express as it opened, planning to ski down to Whistler. As it 
turned out, a ski instructor was getting on the lift at the same 
time. It turned out he had just been given the day off. So I asked 
him if he wanted to do an under-the-table private and he agreed.

We spent most of the day at Seventh Heaven. After a few runs, he 
admitted that "you probably need a more advanced instructor than me", 
but we had fun regardless. He was only 18 years old - a kid taking a 
year off in Whistler. I rapidly figured out that I was more than 2.5 
times his age, and he easily could have been my son!

The snow was rather tricky. It alternated between nice, if damp, 
powder and crusted over dreck. I doubt there were many locals who 
were staying out for it. Anyway, after 6 or 7 runs playing in the 
trees of Seventh Heaven, my new pal led me to Outer Limits way over 
on the skier's right side of Blackcomb. Here we found more variable 
conditions in the trees. It seemed that wherever the snow hadn't 
fallen off the trees, the surface was nice and soft. But wherever the 
trees had shed their load was really ugly. My companion called it 
'death watermelons' in places.

On Sunday, I needed to be back at my condo at Blackcomb by 12:30 at 
the latest so I could pack and catch my bus to the airport. So I 
decided to to do the Fresh Tracks Breakfast at Whistler. This is a 
reasonably-priced deal (CAD$17.79) in addition to the price of your 
lift ticket. It gets you access to the Whistler gondola at about 7am, 
a nice buffet breakfast at the Roundhouse, and access to skiing at 
8AM. You can get 2-3 runs in before the hoards ascend the mountain.

I skied the first few runs with a British guy (also named Jonathan), 
who then disappeared to retrieve his forgotten goggles. I said he 
would text me, but no text message ever came. Goggles were necessary, 
as it was snowing at a pretty good clip. Did I mention there were 
about 4 inches new snow? That freshened things up quite a bit, 
although crunchiness and crustiness still existed, so I was skiing 
pretty cautiously.

After a round or two of phone tag, I met up with Mark, who I 'met' on 
the FirstTracksOnline Western Discussion forum. He's a snowboarder 
who lives in Whistler.

Wow - that guy was The Energizer Bunny. Go! Go! Go! I've never ridden 
with a snowboarder who takes his foot out of the rear binding and 
propels himself forward at high speed like a skateboarder chased by a 
bat out of hell. Off the lifts he snaps in on the fly without slowing 
down. I am not embarrassed to admit I had real trouble keeping up 
with him. He led me down a steep tree shot into Harmony bowl, and 
then we did laps in the trees off the Harmony Bowl lift and some of 
the bowl, when we could see it through the poor visibility. I don't 
know how many runs did - I was too busy trying to keep Mark in sight. 
What a great guy to ski with!

With the snow beginning now to really fill things in up top, I had to 
head back down at 11:30 to keep on time with my scheduled YVR 
departure of 6:53. And I needed every bit of that time. After skiing 
to the bottom of Whistler, taking the Blackcomb gondola to its second 
stop, and skiing down to the Blackcomb base through rain and crusty 
crud (no wonder everyone was downloading on the gondi!), I got back 
to my condo at 12:20.

Of course, in keeping with my general ResortQuest experience, my key 
didn't work, so I had to go back to the front desk (in different 
condo building), costing me about 15 minutes on a tight schedule. A 
quick shower, and an even quicker packing job, and I caught a shuttle 
at 1:30 to the Perimeters bus. Arriving at YVR at about 4:30, I need 
all the time I had before my 6:53 departure to stand in a line to 
check in, stand in a longer line to clear customs, and stand in a 
REALLY long line to clear security. Anyone departing from YVR to the 
U.S. should definitely arrive at the airport 2 hours ahead of their 
flight's departure!
-- 

(c) Jonathan Kamien
mailto:[log in to unmask]

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