Week One, Done!

by Arran

This week had some of the coldest conditions I’ve ever snowboarded in. At some points, it’s been below -20 and the slopes and lifts have been busy due to the Christmas Holidays. Still it’s been a great start to our trip with the both of us finding our feet and getting a feel for life in Whistler.

So far we’ve spent most of our time on Whistler rather than Blackcomb but both mountains are great with a wide variety of runs. There’s a lot on small drops, rollers, and side hits which is awesome and once the crowds are gone hitting them will be even better. We haven’t really ventured into the parks yet but that’s one of my goals over the next week.

The smallest park is TG (Terrain Garden) which is next to the bigger parks including the XL park on Blackcomb. We missed this last time we were over Blackcomb so decided to check it out today. Unfortunately, TG is only two small kickers followed by rainbow box so we’ll be using the Whistler parks to start off with instead. On the plus side the Catskinner chair at the bottom takes you over the XL park. When we rode it today there were two guys taking a snowmobile up the side instead of the chair. One had a Red Bull helmet so I assumed it was a pro and guessed it was Seb Toots. Naturally, we checked social media and it indeed was him along with Max Parrot. They were only hitting the bottom rail at the time but it was still good to see a few pro’s in action. Whistler is known for having some of the best parks in the world so it should have come as no surprise.

I’ve been really impressed with Margarita’s snowboarding so far. She’s looking more and more comfortable on a snowboard and her switch has already come on leaps and bounds. As for me I’ve picked up where I left off. I feel like some of my ‘moves’ are better whilst others are worse 😉 BS1’s (backside 180’s) are definitely my go to trick at the moment and they’re getting smoother all the time.

Most of our time on the mountain has been spent just the two of us although we did spend Saturday with Andrew and Daniella, the only other couple in our chalet, which was great. We did the Peak to Creek for the second time which is an awesome run from the top of Whistler to Creekside. That’s where the photo of Inukshuk (the stone landmark) featured at the top of this post was taken earlier in the week.

There’s an App we’ve been using called Whistler Blackcomb Live. This is linked to your lift pass which is scanned every time before getting on a lift. It tracks all sorts like the amount of lifts taken, vertical ridden, and continuous days on the mountain. Our chalet (past and present occupants) has its own group and leader board for total vertical. Naturally we’re last at the moment although our average is good and since we aren’t working we’ll catch some of them soon 🙂 I say we’re last but I mean I am. One of the lifts today (the Catskinner over the park) doesn’t have gates so I went through too quick to be scanned putting me a few hundred vertical metres behind Margarita. I’ll remember for next time! We’ll keep you posted and let you know where we finish at the end of the 3 months.

It took us both a few days before we could sleep properly and not wake up at ridiculous o’clock. We’re still struggling to stay awake past 10pm especially Margarita. It’s not a bad thing since you need to be up early to make the most of the day but it would be nice if we could make it to the end of a film 😉 We did have one late night out at Garfs with our housemates preceded with a few drinking games none of which either of us had ever played (we are the oldest in the chalet after all). This was followed by our only day off the mountain so far but it was a good bonding experience 🙂

Our day off gave us a chance to explore the village more. It was snowing slightly so we walked along the creek which gave Margarita the opportunity to get her camera out. Check out the Gallery. We hope you like the pictures.

As Margarita mentioned it’s expensive here although you can eat and drink out if you know when and where to go. There’s a great pizzeria called Antico’s which does a pint and a pizza on Tuesdays for $15 which we took advantage of with some of our housemates and their friends. It’s really close to the chalet although most things are as it’s in a great location. It’s only 5 minutes walk to the town centre and 10 minutes to the lifts.

It’s snowing at the moment and we’re about to head out to see the Sunday night Fire and Ice show so I’ll have to end things here. See you later!