Trip Report
Back to my beloved Gatwick airport that I had returned from
just 10 days earlier. Try to catch the tube part way to save
some money. None of the ticket machines working. Queue for one
that everyone else is using... and it won't take my money,
keeps spitting it out. I had been running it tight time-wise
anyway... stress builds...
Jump on anyway without a ticket and get off a few stops
later where I know I can catch a taxi - too late now to ride
the tube in. Jump in and start to relax as we head to Victoria
(where the Gatwick express train goes from). As we pull in,
decide to double check my tickets... and realise I am supposed
to be leaving from Heathrow airport, not Gatwick. In the other
direction. I was this close to having stepped out of the cab,
boarded the train and totally wrecking my trip (my air tickets
are non-changeable, non-refundable)... Needless to say tell
cabbie to drive me to Heathrow - £55 (ouch!) for the fare,
but at least there in plenty of time...
Nine hour direct flight to Vancouver and stayed at a downtown hostel for the
next 3 nights. Doing the shopping trip from hell - backpack
only weighed 6.5kgs coming in to the country as buying all my
winter gear there. Vancouver itself is stunning when the
clouds clear in terms of it's outlook across the bay to all
the mountains... unfortunately there is a lot of rain... and
even snow on my last night there before heading to Whistler...
Whistler-Blackcomb A
two hour bus ride up the stunning coast (very South Islandish,
only on a grander scale) and arrived in the purpose built ski
village of Whistler. It really is an amazing resort, and with
all the Christmas lights on and snow falling it doesn't take
long to get into holiday mood!
I stayed in the Shoestring
Lodge, a cheap hostel that is around 10 mins walk from the
village. The hostel has a bar (the Boot pub, notorious for
it's outstanding strippers 3 nights a week) and a restaurant (Gaitors,
a bit pricey but food is ok) as part of the building. The room
I had was small with four bunk beds and the dorms are mixed. Accommodation
is the big killer in Whistler in the peak season (as most
places I guess). I booked my whole stint there so I didn't
have to waste days working out where to sleep the next night
as many others I met during the trip were, but then again I
was also relying on the snow being good as no refunds!
Be warned - the place is over-run by Australians, they are
everywhere! Mind you to be fair, they did know how to
celebrate Australia day there in their usual drunken style...
it started at 11am (or earlier for some - one was spotted unconscious
already at 11.05am in the Longhorn pub) and by lunch-time the
wrestling in the snow naked was in full force...
Had a great mix of roomies - thankfully I was in the same room the whole
time so had a procession of fellow snow bums from all over the
world come through, for stays varying from a night to a week.
From memory (in total) think I had 3 guys from UK, 1 girl from
Sweden, 1 girl from Switzerland, 5 girls & 5 guys from
Aus, 1 guy from Canada, 1 guy from USA, 1 guy from Japan, 1
guy from Norway and 2 guys from NZ. So a great way to meet a
lot of interesting people who are all there for a good time as
well...
Wouldn't say you got the quietest nights sleep there
- we had vending machines outside the door so all the guys who
toked up at 1am (so much weed at this place, hilarious) then
got the munchies and hung around outside fumbling in their
'quarters' in their quest for a cookie. One night (with two
Tasmanian girl roomies) one of them brought a guy in for the
night. I played dead quietly cracking up as her girlfriend
(not impressed with this turn of events) proceeded to
victimise them from the bunk above about the noise they were
making as they tried to not so quietly (or successfully) play
hide the sausage. Needless to say they looked thoroughly
embarrassed by the whole thing the next morning... I would
love to say that Whistler was over-run by gorgeous women, but
the male:female ratio is around 10:1 - not the kind of odds I
like but at least I had plenty of female roomies during the
trip...
Remembering that first time...
Booked a three day lesson package starting the next day to try to
minimise the pain of learning a new sport - not bad value at $CN
390 for lessons, lift passes and all your gear hire. Groups
are around five people max, but can be less if your lucky day.
Gondolas go up the two mountains (Whistler & Blackcomb)
from right next to each other - 200 runs, 15 high speed lifts,
2 terrain parks & half-pipes... and mountains so big
(5,280 vertical feet of skiing) this is not a place you are
going to get bored in easily!
So, with demo board in hand
it's up the gondola and into the snow. Oh the snow! Fresh
powder all weekend before I arrived... stuff so soft you just
fell over in it just 'because it was there' (or at least that
was my excuse).
Oh yeah, the boarding... well within an hour
we (down to three people by this stage as two gave up) were
well practised at falling over and getting back up again, so
it was time to venture onto the chair-lift to go higher up
onto something with an incline greater than the 5 degrees we
were getting used to. Having successfully navigated getting
off the chair without breaking anything (those who have been
to the mountain can appreciate how awkward it is on a
snowboard since facing sideways) we then did our first
turns... and turns... and turns... and woohoo! In between the
falling over this was damn fun! And so on for the rest of the
day, until by the end we were able to ride all the way down to
the bottom on some blue runs (intermediate) - absolutely
buzzing!
The next day jumped up to a level 4 class and was
blue runs all day, including hitting the terrain park to do
some jumps (damn scary). The final lesson day we had another
dump of fresh powder so off into one of the bowls to get the
biggest rush ever - the free floating "surfing" of
riding a board through untracked deep powder... and by then I
was well and truly hooked. I can't describe it, you have to
experience it yourself - I can only imagine surfing as being
something close to it Pain? Oh yeah...kicked in the third
day - bruises upon bruises on my left buttock & knees,
burning thighs and calves, sore abs and triceps (all that
getting up off the ground so much the first few days)... but
sitting back here in London would gladly swap for that again!
So
was it hard to learn? No way - it obviously gets more painful
the older you are but even having never surfed or skateboarded
(which supposedly help) I still got up to speed quickly as did
most of the people I met. Key thing was to have a lesson when
you begin (not your mates advice!) - met so many people who
had tried/given it up as being too painful or discouraged
because not taught proper technique.
On the mountain
After that was all just practise, practise, practise... I bought a
weekday season pass ($CN 1090) so rode every day during the
week and took weekends off. Bought myself top of the line gear
which still wasn't that expensive (and same price as in
Vancouver) - a Burton Canyon 162 board ($CN 700), NorthWave
boots ($CN 460) and Drake F-60 bindings ($CN 270) - had to buy
Drake of course :)
Either rode by myself, with roomies or
with people I met on the chairs - also a couple of days with
some friends from NZ/London. Also met some cute lifties who I
had done some lessons with so rode with them on their days
off. Great way to improve to go with better and more
experienced riders of course, and was lucky to have some damn
good ones as roomies who would push you into things you
wouldn't otherwise contemplate... like heading through the
trees... flat-lining it straight down the mountain... going
down double black runs (underwear filling stuff)... or hitting
the jumps in the terrain park. Hairiest day was with a guy who
liked going real fast - trying to keep up was such a rush as
your jacket is buffeting from the wind pressure, eyes are
streaming tears behind the goggles, legs are pumping up and
down absorbing the bumps, on the limit of control heading
straight down the mountain...
The snow was excellent
the first couple of weeks - lots of fresh stuff each day (up
to 30cm) and lots of blue sunny days with great visibility -
the views are stunning as surrounded by the Rockies and lakes.
Unfortunately they then proceeded to get unusually mild
weather (and still are) which reduced the snow to one good day
of fresh a week. Not that the snow was bad the rest of the
week (still a 2.5m base so no rocks!) - it's just that once
you get hooked on riding the deep untracked stuff you want
more... and more...
So in the absence of fresh stuff took to
the terrain park instead. For those who don't know it is a
custom area with various big ramps for jumps of assorted
shapes and sizes. They have an intermediate side and an
advanced side... but even intermediate required you to go
about 10 feet horizontal distance in the air to land on the
downslope. Otherwise you landed on the flat 'tabletop' which
is rather painful as your momentum slows in a hurry! The
advanced jumps are impressive - around 25+ feet long to clear,
and some of the pros who live there and practise were doing
all sorts of back flips, front flips, huge spins (900 degrees
plus). Wish I took my good camera but left it at home in case
it got flogged from the hostel.
On my last day rode with some guys from Norway, one of which (Eric) had been
sponsored for a few years. Needless to say was just awesome to
watch, he would throw a 360 spin off the slightest hump,
continually doing little jumps and 180's as we rode along. We
found a spot to practise jumps where he proceeded to do all
sorts of 720's etc with various grabs and huge
distance/height. Wish I had the chance to ride a few more days
with him... hell, just wish I had the chance to ride a few
more days!
By the end of the trip I had succeeded in my goal
of spending more time upright on the board than head buried in
the snow, and having tasted the thrills of riding fast,
hitting jumps, doing tricks such as180's & riding
backwards, not to mention surfing the powder I just can't wait
to get back out there again...
Whistler Village
So what to do at the end of the day? No shortage of shops,
restaurants, bars and clubs in Whistler all keen to part you
from your doolah. Best value for the boys at the Shoestring
Lodge was the $CN 4 entry fee to the Boot to participate in an
in-depth study of the Canadian female anatomy on Tues, Wed or
Fri nights. They also had live bands a couple of nights per
week which varied from awful punk to some good blues.
If having a 'night out' the cheapest option was to stock up from
the bottle store (also part of the pub) and spin some stories
in the room - funnily enough my room was always popular when I
had female roomies! The temperature outside was fairly mild -
usually about -6 or so at night, and from -2 to 0 during the
day. Up the mountain the coldest it got was the first week
(when the snow just kept on falling) at around -20. Sounds
cold but you don't notice it with the right gear on. Other
parts of Canada were hitting -50 or -60 at the time (talking
celsius here too!).
The food was excellent and similar to
Americans comes in big portions - you always would like 2/3 of
the size of the meal for 2/3 of the price... Off to
Seattle
By the end of the fifth week I was suffering from some
damage to my foot - I can't remember any one particular
incident (I had hit a few trees, but not with my foot... ha
ha) but think it was some pulled muscles. Unable to ride any
more (pain was too much with the boot on) I decide to flag the
last week in Whistler and head out. The two Norwegians I had
met (Eric and Ravi) had a car and were going to Seattle via
Vancouver to see an NBA game, so decided to head down with
them. Things didn't go quite as planned - Ravi lost the keys
on the slope so I ended up leaving them behind and caught the
bus down to Vancouver.
The next day did some sight-seeing around Stanley Park and then met up with the guys to head to
Seattle. Watched the Sonics smash the Washington Wizards
(not exactly a thriller) and spent the next few
days sight-seeing. It is a beautiful city at night with it's
distinctive Space Needle building and few sky scrapers...
again wishing I had my good camera with me! Not the safest
place though around where I stayed (hostel again)... guy there
got mugged the first night on way to the movies and there was
a stabbing a week before.
Caught a bus back to Vancouver and spent one last night
there before flying back to London. Found out that the snow
has been dumping down in Europe, so much powder that
avalanches are a huge problem. If my foot wasn't still
recovering would have been straight onto a plane to get to the
slopes in France... but that little detail of getting another
work contract popped up as well. Oh well, hopefully I can get
the snow season back in NZ for a month in 4 months time...
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