Day 7 was another temperature inversion and that's also what's predicted for day 8. It was +3 at the peak and most of the way down the hill, only dipping into negative territory below the mid-station level. We did a few runs on Whistler -- Downhill/Tokum, Raven/Whiskey Jack/Olympic and then headed up and over to Blackcomb, taking advantage of Peak-to-Peak.
Early in the day fog/cloud still hangs over the valley, showing the transition between the warm air above and the cold air below. That's typical of Whistler, because it's so high -- a mid-mountain cloud -- but usually it's warm in the valley, sometimes raining, and sunny above.
The Peak-to-Peak gondola is truly an amazing feat of engineering. There are only four posts supporting it, two at the ends and two not far from the ends, with, as indicated in this "gondola facts" over 3km of unsupported cable in between. The middle cable, the puller, is 9km long, traveling in a loop. The outer two cables support the gondolas.
It's not an aerial tramway like at Jay Peak or Snowbird, it's gondolas with another "factoid" being that one gondola arrives every 49 seconds and it's an 11 minute travel at normal speed.
We skied 7th Heaven a couple of times and then down to the Glacier Creek chalet for lunch. Lunch, as always, is what we carry with us. We spend money on dinner out, but not on breakfast or lunch -- other than our espresso/cappuccino on the hill of course !
After lunch we went down Zig Zag. Sandy was having trouble with her contacts; kind of disconcerting not being able to see ! For a bit of variety we took the Solar Coaster back up and then down Springboard / Lower Gear Jammer (one of our favorite runs) right down to the village. We then took the Whistler Express Gondola up to the Roundhouse/Pika's on Whistler. Sandy can keep her eyes open on this gondola; closes them tight on Peak-to-Peak.
There was a group of people in the P-to-P gondola (it holds 22 sitting and 8 standing, but wasn't full) discussing whether you'd die quicker jumping out of the gondola were it to fall vs staying inside. Sandy wasn't too happy with that ! It would fall a long way too since at it's max, the lowest point of the downward arc but the highest point over the ground, it's about 1450 feet high. Think almost CN Tower height and you get the idea. I'm sure that the weight of the full gondolas is nothing compared to the weight of all that cable !
Back to the top, Sandy was ready to quit as I expected. She took the Downhill; I headed over to the Peak chair, taking a run in the Burnt Stew, then Harmony Horseshoe, then Pika's Traverse/Downhill/Tokum then Downhill to the bottom. By then it was 3pm, time for the lifts to close.
Sandy was waiting for me to go to the hot tub ... it helps my shoulder while in there but it isn't getting any better. Rats.
For dinner we went into the village, picking up Megan's birthday present, some more coffee because we're going to run out; hit the ATM for some cash (all those cappuccino's), and dinner at La Bocca. I had a "hot smoked" coho salmon dish, which was very good but really too much of the hot smoked. It's similar to cooking on a cedar plank; I hadn't known quite what to expect.
Sandy had halibut, pleased with her selection. She debated another coho salmon dish but it came on a bed of lamb bacon -- yes, lamb bacon not lamb & bacon -- and she wasn't sure that she'd like it. I'd suspect that the nature of bacon, i.e. fatty, would mean that it would taste quite lamby, if that's a word (google says not).
Another day done, we watched a little TV, my eyes drooping shut occasionally. In bed around 9pm, Sandy followed me at 9:30. It's not going to be hard to adjust back to Eastern Time !
Onward ... right now it's +1, +1, 0, -8 (top to bottom) and likely to remain about there all day, perhaps warmer in the valley.
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