Period: November 2005 | December 2005 | January 2006 | February 2006 | March 2006 | April 2006

Tuesday February 28 2006 - The Amazing Race 9 (Riding Day 72)

A 9:00am start and today's destination was Blackcomb. I had had a few days off so I was looking forward to going up Blackcomb for the day.

I did a run down Jersey Cream - there was quite a bit of fresh snow but it was a bit lumpy - it had rained quite a bit yesterday and this creates lumps of ice in the snow. I decided to go a bit higher and so headed for 7th Heaven. It was fun up there with plenty of fresh tracks but the visibility at the top of the mountain was poor. I did a few runs and then headed down around 2pm. It was good to get back up.

I looked at a few little web projects in the afternoon and then I watched the first of the three weekly installments of American Idol, tonight it was the girls singing. Then it was a two hour special of The Amazing Race - it was the start of the new season. It was excellent viewing - they had to race to and then around Buenos Aires - our favorites were a couple of hippy mates from California - they came second in the first leg. Fortunately the guys who came last were very annoying and they were sent home! Marie & Phil got us into the program when I was in Jersey. I'm now hooked!

Monday February 27 2006 - Wet & Windy

The alarm went off as set. I looked through the patio doors and the weather was foul - wet and very windy. It's not normally windy in the valley as it's protected by the mountains but today it was howling up through the valley. I did the sensible thing and went back to sleep!

I got myself together in the afternoon and went out to brave the weather. I got the free shuttle bus to Blackcomb with the intention of going to Ciao Thyme for some good grub. Unfortunately it was closed for a staff meeting. Instead I decided to go into the Chateau for a bottle of wine and some Nachos. Their was some cool live jazz music and I hung around there for a few hours.

I got the bus home but unfortunately it took us for a tour round Blackcomb and dropped us off at the bus loop instead. I braved the weather again and walked through the village home. I was treated to Liz's best salon treatments and then watched the season finale of the Bachelor.

Sunday February 26 2006 - Jobs

Today was a 'jobs day'. Although I had had quite a bit of snow overnight, I needed to get some things done like my tax returns so I spent the day dedicated to these. The forecast was for much more snow during the week so the alarm was set for 7:00am.

Saturday February 25 2006 - Showcase Showdown Finals

After getting up relatively early - about 8:00am - I looked on the tele to see if there was a UK football match on. As we are eight hours behind, there is normally a game on the tele on a Saturday morning. Today it was Newcastle vs Portsmouth.

I watched the first half of the game and waited for everyone to get up and ready before I headed into the kitchen to whip up some pancakes for everyone for breakfast. The pancakes, fruit, cream, fresh coffee and orange juice went down well - just how breakfasts should be on a Saturday!

Ian and Agnetta finished off their packing and said there goodbyes at midday. It was sad to see them go but at least they were leaving without injuries!

I headed to the night pipe in the evening to watch the finals of the Showcase Showdown. It had started to snow pretty hard and the pipe was packed which made for a great atmosphere. I stood up there for a couple of hours and watched some great snowboarding. The men were competing for a USD10,000 first prize so were going really big. The winner was a 17 year old guy who just went for it. All in all it was a pretty spectacular event!

I got home about 10ish and had picked up a maccas in the way to warm us up!

Friday February 24 2006 - Showdown Heats (Riding Day 71)

Whistler is hosting the Showcase Showdown today and tomorrow. It's a half-pipe competition with a major sponsor and big prize money. It's held in the evening in the night Super Pipe. I decided I should go and watch. I also wanted to try some night pipe photography and see if my camera was capable of taking action shots without a flash under the bright lights of the pipe. I headed up with Agnetta and Ian about 6:00pm. It was the heats today and it was good fun. The pipe had been decked out with boxes and jumps at the bottom. The idea was that the snowboarders also had to do box, jumps and rail tricks as well as the pipe. Some of the riders were going huge through the pipe and was very impressive. Unfortunately I wasn't getting great results without a flash so I might try some little movies tomorrow instead.

Thursday February 23 2006 - Park & Ride (Riding Day 70)

I did a few jobs in the morning and then met Kat and headed up Whistler for the afternoon.

We did laps through the park again as well as half-pipe runs and tree runs. There had been a couple of centimeters of new snow overnight and this had settled in the park. It was actually bad news as the day before all the ramps were nice and smooth albeit hard but this meant that control was easier both into and out of the jumps. Today it was a bit sketchy in places meaning the landings were a bit nervy and take off's were less smooth. Nonetheless it was good fun and we got about five laps in. Kat was pulling off smooth 360s and she was pretty stoked. We carried on doing laps until the Emerald Chair closed at 3:30 and then we flew down the mountain to the base. We grabbed a beer and a couple of snacks at the Crystal lounge before heading home.

Dinner was at the curry house just across the road from where I live. The kormas were incredibly creamy and reminded me of cream of mushroom soup. They were tasty and I wolfed it down with some Pilau rice and Peshwari nan.

Wednesday February 22 2006 - Park Laps (Riding Day 69)

I went up early to get a good days snowboarding in. I started lapping the terrain park on Whistler. I did a couple of laps and then met up with Justin at the bottom of Emerald. It was a good fun day, I did about eight or nine laps altogether hitting jumps, spines, boxes, the half-pipe and a quarter-pipe. I made it out of the half-pipe which was a result!

We were all going to go to music bingo in the evening but they didn't have it on. Instead, we went for a quick drink in Citta's and then to the cinema to watch Pink Panther - funniest movie I have seen in a while - I'm not a great Steve Martin fan but he carries off the Inspector Clouseau role brilliantly.

Tuesday February 21 2006 - Another Walk

Another day, another walk. After I cooked everyone pancakes, we strolled through the valley towards Meadow Park Sports Center. It was cloudy and much colder today. The walk was a couple of miles and the paths were snowy and pretty slippy in places. We got the bus back from Meadow Park and went for hot chocolates and Blenz.

We had pie and chips for dinner followed by a two hour dose of American Idol.

Monday February 20 2006 - Frozen Lakes (Riding Day 68)

A gorgeous day on the frozen lakes

I went up Whistler today. It was lovely and sunny and the snow at the top of the Gondola was still pretty good and soft considering it hasn't snowed for over two weeks.

We all did a couple of runs down Cougar and the Jolly Green Giant. Then it was hot chocolate at the Roundhouse followed by a download from the Gondola. Ian and Agnetta downloaded from the top and I went down to the midstation and downloaded from there.

I went for a walk in the afternoon. It was still really sunny although very cold. The route I took was through a little wooded housing estate, to Alta lake, Nita Lake and Alpha Lake. All the lakes were frozen solid and there were quite a few people walking over them, walking there dogs and skating. There were also a couple of Hockey games going on too.

I ventured onto the frozen lake but it was as eery as it was slippy so I didn't spent too long on them.

After taking lots of photos and enjoying the views, I eventually made it to Creekside which is part of the Whistler ski area but a little village all by itself and is where the Olympic athlete village will be in 2010. I stopped off for a coffee at a Starbucks and then caught the bus home about 5:00pm.

I had a quiet night getting Saw II and Madagascar out on DVD.

Sunday February 19 2006 - Reflexology

I showed Ian and Agnetta around the village and started getting them sorted with Lift tickets and snowboarding equipment.

After a quick tour of the main village walk and the shops - including Agnetta's fave - Cow's, I went to MY Foot where I had booked in for my Reflexology session . It was a strange experience which was often painful! I started off with my feet being soaked in a gel for 15 minutes which was then washed off. I'm not sure what it was meant to do. Then my feet were rubbed for 40 minutes. They were pummeled, beaten and kneaded all over - not exactly a relaxing experience! After it was over they did feel good but I'm not sure if I would be in a rush to book another soon!

I met up with Agnetta and Ian again and we walked over to Merlin's at the base of Blackcomb where the Roxy course was concluded. We walked home, had a little snooze and got ready for dinner. We headed down to one of our fave's - Milestones. It was good grub and we got home about 10:00pm. Everyone was tired and got an early night ahead of an early start on the mountain tomorrow. I was pretty excited though - I hadn't been on the slopes for three days and was looking forward to trying out my new boots and getting some riding done.

Saturday February 18 2006 - Hey Boots

I had a nice relaxing day at home on my own today. I didn't really fancy going up the mountain as I was expecting it to be mobbed with the US bank holiday.

I didn't do much, just tidied the house a bit in anticipation of Ian and Agnetta's arrival in the evening and I did a bit of research on boots. I also noticed that Jake Burton was also blogging his 100 days this season. I think he's on about 58 but that was before he went to Torino for the olympics - maybe he claimed his 60th day riding with Shaun White?

I nipped out for an hour before Ian and Agnetta arrived. Comor have a huge sale on with great bargains so I went looking for boots to replace mine which are now being held together with duct tape. I tried on numerous pairs and the snuggest were definitely a pair of Burton SL-8s. I ended up buying them - no doubt a couple of weeks of pain though - I hate breaking in new snowboarding boots!

Ian & Agnetta arrived safely and seemed to have survived the trip from Jersey pretty well. We all chilled out at home with some Dominos pizza and caught up on chat and news.

Friday February 17 2006 - Sushi & Maccas

Sushi Ya

Friends were due round about 6 for a hot tub and then sushi at Sushi Ya just round the corner above McDonalds.

We had about 13 people round and about half of us hit the hot tub. It was the busiest hot tub I had ever had, it's president's day on Monday which is a bank holiday in the US and it seems quite a few americans had made the trip early as the village was busy and so was the hot tub.

We headed to Sushi Ya for dinner. We had our own little room and all squeezed round a table and tucked into Sapporo and various forms of sushi. Justin's double wasabi challenge was very impressive, he managed to eat a mouthful of the mustard like stuff - twice. Very brave!

We all came out of the sushi restaurant at about 10:00pm and congregated outside. The golden arches of Maccas was too tempting and we all tucked into Cheeseburgers, Mc Flurries and Sundaes!

Thursday February 16 2006 - minus 31 degrees ?!?!?!? (Riding Day 67)

Early up today and I met up with Justin, Georgia & Jimmy at 9:00am at the Longhorn. It was about minus 11 in the village and minus 15 on the mountain before wind chill. The winds got gusty at times and it did feel very arctic at times.

We spent most of the morning on 7th heaven as it gets the sunshine all day. The shade was almost unbearably cold. It got to about 11:00am and we all needed defrosting so we headed back to Rendezvous for hot chocolate and cookies. Then it was a couple of rides through the park and half-pipe and back to Rendezvous for 1:00pm where we were meeting Kat and her friend, another Justin.

The afternoon started well with a good run down 7th again and then off the back of Blackcomb peak onto Glacier and down through Crystal. No normally I'm skier friendly and don't buy into the skier vs boarder thing but today my patience was tested. Firstly a skier pulled out right in front of me without looking putting herself in severe danger of being flattened by me a high speed, and then I was hit twice by out of control skiers on the way down Ridge Runner. I was not a happy bunny!

We did a run down Jersey Cream and then the final run of the day through the park. It was very icy at the bottom of the mountain and I was very very cold. It was good to eventually get home.

I watched a bit of tele and the forecast was minus 31 degrees in the village tomorrow - brrrrr!

Oh yes, as a final note - I've been reliably informed that Whistler features on one of the UK holiday programs on Tuesday back home so tune in all you UK and Jersey people to get a taste of where I am.

Wednesday February 15 2006 - Tubing

A super lazy day! I camped out in the living room last night and as I have all the amenities we need at hand i.e. kitchen then it was a 4:00pm start to the day! I met up with Justin, Ben, Bron, Justin's sis Georgia and Jimmy for a bit of tubing.

The tubing was great fun, it cost us $15 dollars for the two of us and that gave us an hour of whizzing down some ice tracks on a blow up tube. We managed to get 4 runs in each. The park opened this year for the first time and apparently the concept is starting to prove popular in other resorts around North America. It was pretty busy but as it's so cold at the moment it was super fast!

Tim and Kirsten were also there and had brought up marshmallows and hot chocolate. There is a fire pit next to the tube park. We all sat round and toasted marshmallows and drank hot chocolate with Baileys. It was a lovely way to spend the evening.

Tuesday February 14 2006 - Valentines Day - I'm Lovin It - by Liz (Riding Day 66)

I made my way up to Blackcomb and met up with Bron, Ben, Georgia and Jimmy at Rendezvous. We went to see Justin, he was hard at work reading a book and sitting in the sunshine waiting for customers to store their gear. He wanted to show us the new olympic sport of Chair Surfing (see movies) he was well practiced! We went for a run down Easy Out and through the Terrain Garden down to the Solar Coaster chair back up to the top. It was sunny but chilly so we decided to call it a day and do the run down Blackcomb to Merlin's for a jug of beer.

Monday February 13 2006 - Lost in Heaven (Riding Day 65)

I decided to go for a run up Blackcomb today. It was pretty cold but the sun was out so we decided to head over to 7th Heaven to catch the rays.

I needed warming up in the evening so I stayed in and watched Hannah Teter win the ladies half-pipe at the Torino olympics.

Sunday February 12 2006 - Heaven (Riding Day 64)

After getting up a bit late and a couple of bagels for breakfast, I got my gear together and met up with Kat at Blackcomb Base II.

We headed up the mountain and over to 7th heaven. It hasn't snowed for quite a while but there is more than enough base to cover all the rocks and get into the trees. The weather was glorious again, in fact pretty barmy, and that softened the snow enough to make it into good riding conditions.

We did three runs down 7th, ducking ropes, jumping snow lips, crossing into trees and generally going pretty quick and aggressively. It was good riding and loads of fun. 7th closed at 3:30 and we headed down the mountain.

I watched a bit of the olympics on tele in the evening - seeing Shaun White win the half-pipe was pretty amazing and the ski jumping was pretty good too. Then it was the feet up, some pasta and a yet another movie.

Saturday February 11 2006 - Sunny Day

A beautiful day - fitzsimmons creek.

The weekends get busy on the mountain so today was a day off. The weather was gorgeous so I decided to go out for a walk and find somewhere to get some brunch.

I walked over to Blackcomb the Lorrimer Road route which goes through woodlands rather than through the busy village. We checked out the cafe at Chateau Whistler but it seemed a bit naff only really serving sandwiches and pastries. I knew of a little restaurant across the road - kiwi Dave works there and it's called Ciao Thyme. The menu looked good so I popped in. I had great pancakes with fried bananas, bacon and maple syrup together with freshly squeezed orange juice and a latte. It was all excellent!

The food deserved a walk so I had a little hike around the paths along fitzsimmons creek and lost lake. It was still very sunny and very relaxing. The scenery was stunning. We shared the trails with a few cross-country skiers, people on snow shoes and quite a few people walking their dogs.

I popped to the video shop and got out a couple of movies for the evening.

Friday February 10 2006 - Backcountry Hike (Riding Day 63)

I met up with Kat at 12 and we headed up Whistler. It was another glorious cloudless day perfect for hiking backcountry.

This was my third time up Flute. Today was the best visibility and the easiest hiking yet. It hadn't snowed since monday and the sunny weather had made a hard crust over the snow. After taking the Peak chair, we dropped off the track behind peak and traversed down to the avalanche control gate for Piccolo. A short hike of about 20 minutes and we were at the Piccolo peak. The views were stunning with perfect visibility. The last time we went up Piccolo the route down to the Flute hike was soft untouched powder. This time there were more tracks and the snow was a lot crustier. It was fun none the less with a couple of drops I carried over and kept my speed up.

The hike up flute seemed much easier today. It was tracked and my feet didn't really sink into the snow when climbing. After about 30 minutes we got to the Flute Summit. The drop we did last time was pretty tracked out. Obviously the great sunny conditions all week had attracted a few more visitors than Flute normally gets. So we headed past the summit and through a backcountry gate. We strapped on our boards and made our way down the backside of Flute. To our amazement we found and rode into another absolutely stunning bowl. There were only a fraction of the tracks than in the Flute bowl. The hike to the peak would have taken about another 30 minutes and it was about 3:00pm so we decided to hike out of the bowl on the Flute side instead. We promised to return another day and hike the backcountry bowl summit. As we were hiking out we noticed two huge kickers built into the side. Nobody was around but they looked like the sort of thing you see on snowboarding movies.

Eventually we were back on the ledge of the flute bowl. We dropped down, the powder was the best found anywhere this week - still deep and soft. I slalomed around some ice boulders which had been created from avalanche blasting and carved hard and fast all the way to the bottom with a grin on my face.

By the time we hiked out of flute it was gone 4:00pm and the mountain was officially closed. This meant the run from burnt stew trail to the base of Whistler mountain was quiet and so we bombed all the way down at top speed - probably the fastest I have snowboarded over a long distance in my life! The vertical distance was over 1km and we did the run in only a few minutes!

All the hiking had left me pretty tired so it was feet up in the evening to a dinner of sausage, chips and beans - great!

Thursday February 9 2006 - Blacks

After a bit of a lie in, I met up with Bron at 11:30am. We hung around for Justin for 20 minutes and then went up Whistler. Instead of going all the way to the top on the Gondie, we got off at Midstation and got the Garbanzo chair lift. It was a stunningly beautiful day and Garbanzo takes you to runs which are rarely used.

Our first run of the day was an empty Raven. It's a black diamond run and Bron managed it with ease putting in plenty of turns. We made our way to the bottom of the Emerald chair and luckily we bumped into Justin. Then we made our way to a gladed area , the area was a little traverse towards Harmony from the top of Emerald and down through the trees around Ratfink. Some of the track through the trees was marked with yellow flags and this lead you through a little roller coaster type route. Lots of fun!

We then decided to go up Peak. Bron hadn't been up the chair before and the views were stunning at the top. After a bit of a photo session, Justin and I headed down the path to Peak to Creek whilst Bron made her way to the Saddle. We all agreed to meet up at the bottom of the Big Red Express. Justin and I didn't take long to get there as we took the double diamond Monday's/Cockalorum route through West Bowl and the glades at the bottom to Highway 86. All in all it took about ten minutes. Bron followed up about 20 minutes later having done the saddle.

Justin scooted off, Bron got on the Gondie whilst I decided to ride to midstation via the Garbanzo runs. This time I decided to go down Seppo's. It's a fun little route that starts in a relatively flat little powder field, down a steep short section and then into a mini half pipe section. Then at the end is a nice wide run down to the gondie midstation. It's a black run and the hardest we had done that day.

We met up with Bron in the village and headed to the GLC for a couple of beers. Bron brought one of her Whistler Kids friends and they had a couple of hot chocolates. Bron was tubing at 5 so left a bit early. I tucked into a massive plate of nachos and a jug of Kokanee.

Wednesday February 8 2006 - Lone Ranger

Another absolutely stunning day and a couple of inches of fresh snow overnight persuaded me to make this my return from injury!

I got to the gondie about 8:45 and went up Whistler. The snow was nice and soft - excellent carving conditions.

I'm not a big fan of riding alone as it's a lot safer to ride with other people just in case something happens. I'm pretty confident nothing will happen on piste but you can never be sure in trees as there are hidden dangers. But today I gave it a go and do a bit of cautious exploring.

My first run was to enjoy the trees around the Habitat Terrain Park and then a very fast carving run down the Enchanted Forest and Ego Bowl. Then it was off to check out the trees near Banana Peel and Jimmy's Joker. The black runs were mostly moguled so getting into the trees was much more fun. Most of the paths through the trees were untouched so turning was pretty easy and therefore good to get some speed up.

Then it was off to Peak to Creek for some double diamond powder off Monday's, some nice powder in the glades at the bottom of West Bowl and then a completely untouched run down Big Timber. It was incredible that it was 11:00am and no one had been down the run at all leaving me with fresh tracks. I did get stuck at one point though following a path down to an area with dense trees. I was pretty confident that the trees would lead out to a piste area but being a lone I had to hike out of the path. It took about 20 mins to walk through the thigh deep snow crossing a couple of bear tracks!

I got down to Creekside and got the lifts back up to the top of Peek. This time I decided to follow a ridge I had been checking out for a while. The ridge drops off both sides and is the start of shale slope ad left hook. But instead I followed the ridge all the way to it's end where I found some great powder and trees that lead for quite a way down to where highway 86 meets Franz's. It was unmarked on the map and pretty untouched. There was a cliff area to be avoided but that was easy enough as they are always well sign posted.

My last runs on Whistler for the day were off Harmony. I got to the lift via the trees at ratfink, dapper's delight and chunky's choice. It was good fun and probably the best way to Harmony I had found so far. After a trip up Harmony Chair I followed Harmony Ridge all the way to The Glades tree runs. Finally I made my way back after getting some more freshies down Camel Back and then some more dropping off Pika's Traverse.

I did a very fast run to the bottom of Whistler, the snow was very quick - not too soft to slow you down but soft enough to carve confidently. I got to the bottom about 1:30 and even though my legs were tired, the day was gorgeous so I decided to go up Blackcomb to one of my favorite runs which is the unmarked route that requires a hike above Crystal. The views up there are stunning too so it was great photo op.

Home was via Fraggle Rock and more untouched snow. Once home I tidied up a bit, did a bit of shopping and read a surf mag.

Dinner was pie from the pie shop and some oven cooked proper chips - great stuff. Then it was some more American Idol and some more of season two of Lost.

Tuesday February 7 2006 - Road To Recovery

My leg was still bad but recovering so I decided to take the day off again.

I did quite a bit of reading in the morning and did a bit of research on visa requirements as mine is due to run out on 30 April and I won't be leaving Canada until at least the 1 May when the rent finishes in Whistler. The weather was stunning so I went for a little walk in the village and a coffee. The coffee turned into a full blown meal at the Old Spaghetti Factory with me tucking into a lasagne. The evenings are getting noticeably lighter as well with dusk about 5:00pm now and getting later.

I chilled out in the evening with another movie and American Idol. It was the last of the regional auditions with tomorrow the first of the eliminations in Hollywood. Exciting stuff! Oh and one for Maz & Phil - a new season of the Amazing Race starts on 28 February - I'll video record it of you like!

Monday February 6 2006 - Healthy Monday

The weather was great today but my left leg was still giving me jip so I had no intention of going out onto the slopes. After our obligatory Monday lie in, I got up and headed to the gym. I wanted to work a bit on stretching and loosening my legs.

The sports center was quiet. I started off on the exercise bike and then I went on the treadmill. I started off with a quick walk and moved onto a jog. It did loosen up the muscles a bit although they were still sore. Then I did some weights and some more stretching. Even though I not a great fan of gyms it did help and it was quiet which was good.

A guy who I knew called Andrew was in the gym working hard on a bike. When he had finished I went over for a chat. He had hurt himself whilst skiing about three weeks ago around Xhiggy's meadow. He had cracked a rib. Also, his partner, Anna, had hurt her back so neither of them were getting on the mountain. Andrew said that he had decided to finish the season early and they were heading back to Melbourne on Saturday. Another friend, Holly, left last week to go back to Oz. A shame to see people go early but sometimes other priorities take over in life.

I popped into Westbeach and Comor after our walk home. My snowboarding boots are starting to fall apart at the seams and I always end up with soaking wet feet, which inevitably end up frozen on a cold day. But new ones are going to cost me about $400/£200 so I might have to try a super glue and duct tape solution for the time being as funds are starting to get a bit low after trips to Vancouver and snowmobiling and the like recently.

Sunday February 5 2006 - Superbowl XL

I committed myself to a day indoors today - the legs were still shot from the ski-dooing in Thursday. Also, the Superbowl was on at 3:30 in the afternoon which was a good enough reason as any to put the feet up.

Kat popped round at lunch time for a cuppa before the superbowl started. Then I watched a bit of the Superbowl warm up - lots of ads and music - Stevie Wonder and Joss Stone being the main stars. Then it was kick off. It was the Pittsburgh Steelers vs the Seattle Seahawks. Seeing as though Seattle is almost local, we weakly supported them - they needed it, the Superbowl was being held in Detroit which is 'close' to Pittsburgh - about 300 miles - as opposed to about 1500 miles from Seattle and so most of the crowd seemed to be Pittsburgh fans.

The american football was pretty good - I remembered some of the rules and plays - both from as a child when it was popular in the UK with the Fridge from the Chicago Bears and Dan Marino from the Miami Dolphins were always playground heroes and also from University Days when we used to play John Madden on the Mega-Drive.

But probably the best bit of the game was the ads - about 90 million americans watch the superbowl and a 30 second ad costs about $2.5 million so advertisers go extra lengths to try and make their ads the best. Our favorites were two from Budweiser - one about a magic fridge and another about skiving husbands, a pre-historical one from Fed Ex, Liz chuckled at a Burger King ad and another ad about a mobile phone being a crime deterrent was funny. Finally, this one reminded me of a place I used to work! Great stuff!

Saturday February 4 2006 - Fraggle Rock

I got up at 7:15 from our lounge bed. It happened very slowly as my right leg had practically seized up but a couple of ibuprofen and a bit of stretching and I was just about able to get my boot on. I still managed to meet up with Kat, today's destination was Blackcomb.

Kat was also feeling a bit worse for wear so we agreed to take it easy. It actually turned out to be easier than we expected - the crowds were some of the biggest I had seen all season. Each lift queue - solar, excelerator and crystal - had 30 minute waits. High winds at alpine compounded the problem as the 7th heaven and glacier chairs couldn't be opened. The snow was good though - we had had 20cms overnight - this had been forecasted and probably the reason why thousands of people had made the trip up to Whistler for the weekend.

Even though the going was slow due to the lifts and sore legs, we still managed to have a good morning due to some successful exploration. We found Fraggle Rock - an unmarked run on Crystal which was cleared a few years ago in anticipation of a new chair lift which was never built for some reason. There was some great powder, good rock drops and trees. It was also relatively untouched. We also did a small tree passage from the top of excelerator to crystal which drops through trees and runs parallel to a stream. We also noticed a largely untouched area near 7th which was a clearing in the trees. Even on a really busy day it's comforting to know great secret spots to get away from the crowds. Next time I'll come back when my legs work though!

I limped home, showered changed and went out to the marketplace, had a bit of pasta and chilled out whilst my legs finally completely gave up on me.

Friday February 3 2006 - Lounge Camping! (Day 59)

Matt & Jacque left for Vancouver around midday. They wanted to spend the night there before catching their flight back to the UK on Saturday. It was good to have them over - it was a shame about Jacque's broken wrist but they both seemed to be on good form and hopefully enjoyed themselves. Matt is getting a bit bonkers in his old age though!

I met up with Kat at 1:00pm outside Blenz where she is working now, and headed up Blackcomb to meet Justin at Glacier Creek. The three of us did a couple of hours riding including a trip up to Spanky's and down through the Terrain Garden. My legs were a bit tired from ski-dooing and my goggles were fogged so I was a bit slower than usual!

I was looking for to a quiet night in as my legs were getting more sore as the day went on.

Thursday February 2 2006 - Ski-Doo (moo)

Matt & Jacque on their snowmobiles.

We had booked some snowmobiling for today and were due to be picked up at 11:30am. The van from Canadian Snowmobiling Adventures didn't turn up so we walked up to their offices near the gondie. We signed our lives away (again) and were off in their bus to Callahan Valley for the start of our adventure.

We changed our gear (matt swapped his stealth jacket and suddenly became visible again) and had a safety briefing and then picked our snow-mobiles for the day. Jacque and Matt were sharing due to Jacque's broken arm. We set off up the fire trails through the valley. There was tons and tons of snow and it was very difficult to get any speed up due to bumps in the trails.

We got to a point where it was possible to have a bit of a play in the powder although the guide mentioned that anybody who does will probably get their snowmobile stuck in it! I gave it a go and lone behold I got stuck! A few minutes later and a lot of stomping around the snowmobile to get it out and I was up and running again.

We passed a waterfall, took some photos and then stopped at a hut for some trail mix and water. Then it was all the way back again. All in all it took about three hours and was tons of fun.

We got back to the village and grabbed a couple of beers and some bar snacks (chicken wings etc) at the Crystal Lounge. We stopped by Cows for a bit of fun and then it was home for a quiet evening in front of the tele, drinking beer, watching Fame and eating Dominos Pizza.

Wednesday February 1 2006 - Music Bingo (Day 58)

There was another 20cms of new snow so there was plenty on the slopes! It was officially announced that January was a record month for snowfall - the total snowfall was 469cms or 15.6ft!

I met up with Matt & Jacque in the afternoon and had a walk around the shops and had many photo opportunities with different stuffed animals - bears, moose and beavers - Matt felt right at home with all that fur!

Jacque and Matt cooked a great Beef Stroganoff in the evening and after we headed out to Citta's pub for 'music bingo'. It's dead easy but the general idea is that they play songs and if the name of that song is on your bingo card you cross it off. Then if you are the first to create lines across your bingo card then you win prizes. There were three bingo games - the first was an 80's theme, the second was TV themes and the last was a championship game with different genre's of music. If you're the first to get a line in any game then you win a cool bag, the first to get two lines gets a t-shirt and the first to get three lines get's a dinner and desert for two!

I was getting loads of hits on the second game - TV themes - but missed out on the first to get one and two lines, but I was very lucky and won the meal for two! This actually turned out to be a mac and cheese mix and three lollipops!

We had had a few jugs of beer so we decided to carry on the theme of the evening at home and played our own music quiz until 1:00am. The overall music trivia talent was surprisingly good!