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This recap covers Friday/Sat/Sun of our trip last week… (read part 1 here)

The next two days, we enjoyed continual new snow which just kept falling! On Friday we rode Blackcomb. We really wanted to go up to the top of the hill and go over the backside to the Blackcomb glacier and to the back bowl, but the top was closed due to the storm. We were somewhat near to the top, having taken no less than 4 lifts to get to our first run of the day, and the wind was absolutely pelting us with powerful gusts and driving the snow into our faces – thank god for goggles and face masks. It was very hard to see at times, luckily they mark the trails with orange signs at the left edge of the runs, and blue at the right. Just keep yourself inbetween those two markers as you make your way down the hill and you won’t end up off a cliff! Needless to say, we did not go back up to the top of the Exelerator chair due to these conditions.

(Gracie and Jessie in line, and already snow is accumulating on them!)

Further down from these freezing winds, we rode up and down the Solar Express a few times. The snow was really nice here and it was a fun blue/blue-black run that wasn’t too tracked out or bumpy. In some places there were rocks exposed – weird because of the amount of snow that had fallen. I was pleasantly surprised by the small # of people on the hill – it certainly wasn’t like mammoth which gets so busy in places. Maybe the snowfall and wind kept people inside? But it was great for us!

Saturday we went back to Whistler Mountain and were stunned that it was STILL snowing… we noticed when we got up that it had pretty much slowed to a light flurry, but then when we made our way up to the gondola to take our first run of the day, it was once again thick, heavy flakes that quickly added up to a new layer of snow on the sidewalks. And the mountain itself was covered with at least 8″ of freshies.

Each run that we did still had areas of untracked powder although our favorite runs of Thursday (Franz’s) were pretty packed-powder and a little icy in places. Definitely not as good as Thurs. conditions. However, we discovered a secret trail under the Whistler gondola – following the signs to Kadenwood, we ended up on a little pathway that had nobody on it, and was just one of those windy, cruisy runs through the trees, thick with powder. Once the run dumped us out of the trees onto a wide run, we were on the skier’s left of the gondola and found these undiscovered areas where there were nobody else. This is where we really found the powder. Both Jessie and I managed to get stuck in it a few times but for the most part it was light, fluffy, and at least 12″ deep or more in places. This really felt like the run of the day, so like Costanza, I “ended on a high note” and took the gondola back up to make my way back to the Village for another après session at the GLC. The gals met me later for beers and we watched the in-house band, the Hair Farmers for a while, and headed home for rest, hot tubbing, and primping for the evening’s dance festivities.

(Jessie, me, and Gracie always ending on a high note at the GLC)

All in all, I really enjoyed Whistler. First off, it was fun to be in another country to go snowboarding. Having just been to Australia two months ago, it was cool to be surrounded by mostly non-Americans. We met a handful of Americans, all from Seattle (it’s only a few hours drive, comparable I think to Los Angelenos driving to Mammoth.) Mostly we met Canadians, and TONS of Aussies. Everybody was really nice – surprisingly so! On Friday, I even got run into by some douchebag on the mountain who was out of control, but he stopped and apologized and made sure I was OK. Unfortunately, I can’t say that about most riders at Mammoth and Snow Summit!

Another random act of Whistler kindness – on one of the traverses, I was about to stall out when a friendly skier cruised by me and goes “grab my pole!” She pulled me out past the flats and I made it without having to stop. How cool was she?

The village is awesome; as I mentioned, it is a huge village and not just a few blocks of stores. I love that the entire town is more or less easily walkable even in the snow. Once you’ve made your way from your condo into the village, you can meander through and shop or eat without getting snow on your pretty little head – because the walkways are under the 2nd-level businesses in each building (the stores are set back from the open-air.)

(Jessie in the Village, going shopping)

Prices in the restaurants and bars were comparable to LA. And there’s a good range of choices for dining – from cheap-but-delicious made to order burgers at the Splitz Grill, to nice high-end sushi. Music in the bars ranged from standard American top 40 dance music to hip-hop to European style-house… sometimes in the same night! It was definitely interesting last night at the Savage Beagle, when the dj mixed in “Shout” and “Tequila” to the mix of Euro anthems. (But that did give us a chance to do our best pee-wee herman moves.)

As we left today, we saw our first peek of blue sky in the entire 4 days of our stay… looked like it was shaping up to be a beautiful bluebird day! But we got some great riding in, and sampled a lot of what Whistler had to offer. I’ll definitely be back!

Want more about our Whistler trip?
- Read Part 1 of my recap
- View our pics on Flickr
- Watch videos on YouTube