Arrival Date 27/03/2005

Having spent a few days in Vancouver buying warm clothes we made a hurried journey to Whistler as we discovered that the ski / snowboard schools started on Monday.  We'd waited until the last minute (not because we always leave things to the last minute - well, we do but that's another story) but because we were waiting for the snow report.  As you may be aware, this has been one of the worst winters for skiing in Canada for a long time.  The ski season has been pretty awful but has more than made up for it during the last couple of weeks.

NEW - We now have some photos.  As you may be aware both of our digital cameras (yes, including my new expensive digital SLR) broke just before we left New Zealand.  We resorted to a couple of disposable cameras, and I must say that the results are much better than expected (click on the camera icon below to see for yourself).  I've pinched the photo on the right from another web site as it's a cracking shot of the Whistler / Blackcomb resort.

In total we spent 8 days on the snow, taking a weekend off in the middle to catch our breath.  The boys both enrolled in ski / board school for the first 5 days and loved it.  I joined the 'ride tribe' and spent 4 days with a great bunch.  Our leader took us to many remote locations and, consequently, we boarded some fantastic powder.  One day we removed our boards and hiked for about 30 minutes to the top of a bowl where we boarded off / through a cornice.  We spent quite a bit of time in the terrain parks and I finally managed to pull off a reverse 180 amongst many other pathetic attempts!  Max took immediately to boarding and amazed me when he told me had been riding grinds / rails on his second day.  When we went out as a family on day 7 Max decided to take on a big jump.  I thought that he would approach it cautiously but no, he hit it at full speed and ended up body slamming into the snow from about 1.5m in the air.  Understandably, this shook him up a bit and it was the last time he jumped.  I'm sure he'll be straight back on the ramps next time we go though.  Joe stuck with skiing and thoroughly enjoyed himself.  After a full day's lesson they still wanted to go back up the mountain with me for one last run.

On our weekend off we did some walking around the lake and were (semi) hoping to see some brown bear.  Our taxi driver on the return journey to Vancouver told us a story about his brother who returned home twice in one week to find a brown bear in his living room.  The first time it had ripped out the cooker extractor and was licking the fat from it.  The second time it had moved the fridge into the living room and was going through the contents, throwing stuff that it didn't like to one side.

What I really like about skiing / boarding in Whistler:

What I missed about Europe: