Jan 9 - Whistler Day 1

It was a day of Whistler powder, so heavy that it could stop you in your tracks.  Neither of are really good at this, especially having had three years off !

Much had been groomed, but that grooming had taken place during the "snow event" so there was fresh snow everywhere.  Most hills had loose powder and soft moguls but if you wandered off to the side, especially on the flat you simply sunk in and stopped, snow up to your knees.  It was almost impossible to even walk in that stuff !  You'd push your ski poles down with only 1' sticking up and the "heels" of your skis sinking backwards.

We skied Bear Paw, Tokum and Ptarmigan off the Garbanzo chair; Ptarmigan again after we saw that they'd opened the Peak chair and then headed down the Dave Murray to the red chair, up and into Pika's for lunch.  Prior to the Peak opening, they'd been shooting avalanches constantly.  If you were watching the right place, you'd see a puff of snow and then a few seconds later, the boom.

While at lunch, I called Sharon.  The home inspection at Saxon had turned up a window in the master bedroom that wouldn't completely close unless you went outside and pushed -- needs some work; a couple of GFCI's that weren't working properly -- easy; and the broken spring on the fold-down ladder to the attic.  Sharon said that the lady (and her husband) purchasing the house were so in love with it that she didn't think that they'd even come back to us with anything.

Next up, the bank appraisal for mortgage purposes ...

After lunch we went up the Peak, down into what used to be called the Burnt Stew Basin and is now the Sun Bowl.  There was no sun.  Vis was very limited up top.  We skied over to the Symphony chair, getting bogged down in that snow, up that chair twice and then Sandy was finished for the day.  We skied down to the green, up and Sandy went into Pika's for a 15 minute rest before heading down.  I went back over the Harmony, skied that chair four times and then the Garbanzo once and it was then after 3pm, closing time.

The only chair that is open after 3pm this time of year is the Garbanzo -- 3:15. I could have done one more run to that chair but I was tired.  A half-hour later and I was down, the last part of that run in heavy fog at the bottom of the Dave Murray.  The run was in excellent shape ... too bad because I had to pick my way down in the fog.

When I got up the elevator, Sandy was just heading to the hot tub.  I'm not a hot tubby person.  She was back in a while; we snacked -- yes, we have olive tapenade !

For dinner we opted to go to another local restaurant, a new place built for the Olympics with a restaurant called Aura.  I had a green salad with Osso Buco.  There was no green salad on the menu but they readily made the beet salad and "hold the beets".  Sandy had tuna with a wonderful appetizer with tiny, tiny gnocchi.  My meal was good but very rich.  Hers was excellent.  She had ordered the three course meal so she also had Tiramisu.

The day was definitely done.  I lasted almost until 9pm and then hit the sack.  I don't think that Sandy was long behind me.

I woke up at my normal time, 2am.  Whoops, I'm in a different time zone.  Ok, I dozed on and off until 5am ... I've almost adjusted now.

The prediction for the next for days is sun.  We'll be able to ski the upper alpine areas, enjoy all that powder so much more because we'll be able to see it !  There's more powder than could possibly be worn off by the number of skiers here, so we'll be able to make "fresh tracks" if an when we want.

Onward !