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Here is Noah - we met him on one of our favorite runs from Thursday, Franz’s, on Whistler. He actually volunteered to take pics of me and Jess as we struggled to get some good mountain scenery.  He’s a skier, but we don’t care, he’s still a hottie!

Age: 26
From: Toronto, Canada
Been skiing for 15 years

Nice meeting you Noah!

Jessie and I have been in Whistler since Wed. Jan 2. Have limited internet connectivity so will try and post when we can… here is a recap of the first two days…

After an arduous 12-hour travel day (unbelievable, since Vancouver is only 2:15 away from LAX… I’ll post later about my experience with Snowbus… don’t use them!) I finally met up with the girls in the Whistler condo that we rented. We’re staying in a really nice 2BR condo with our own hot tub, in the Main Street area, a close 10 minute walk to the Whistler Village.

Whistler must be the biggest “village” I’ve ever been to. Vail doesn’t count because it’s like 3 separate villages spread across the Lionshead/Vail area… but this is truly a village – cute brick-paved walkways and interconnected storefronts, lit up with cute lights and hundreds of fellow snow-lovers cruising around at night. It’s packed with entertainment options - about 30+ bars/restaurants to choose from. And countless stores! There is even a Burton women’s store – I’ll have to check that out & review it later.

This first night, I didn’t go out as I was exhausted from traveling and I wanted to be in top form for the first day on the mountain. But not to worry – Jessie will be posting a rundown of her favorite nightspots here soon.

We got up bright and early on Thursday Jan 3 and were out the door by 8:45. Walking all the way to the Blackcomb and Whistler gondolas takes about another 5 minutes, so we were in the gondola for the first ride by 9:15. Did I mention that it had begun snowing, hard, and didn’t let up all day long? We stayed on the Whistler side today and unfortunately ran in to a ton of god-awful traverses that killed my legs for the rest of the day. But the snow kept coming down… the runs were covered with feathery snow about 12” deep of fresh powder in places. It wasn’t too tracked-up either – we went down Ptarmigan and Franz’s run quite a few times, noted as the “run of the day” by the lifty’s. Overall, it was not too busy and a lot of great snow. The runs are so long here!

The funniest moment of the day was when Jessie and I were riding in the Whistler Creek gondola, and suddenly we heard a big THUD. Jessie screamed “like a little bitch” and then we heard cackling from down below – some little kids beaned us with a snowball and hit the gondola car! We both started cracking up when we realized it was just those kids and yelled out “little bastards!”

We got in a bunch of great riding though… it was a good warm-up day. The constant snowfall made for challenging vision at times, but the snow was so nice that hitting unexpected bumps wasn’t too bad for the riding.

At the end of the day, we enjoyed a few après-ski beers at the GLC – cool place with great service and a female (yeah!) DJ spinning trip-hop, downtempo, and a little big beat. I gotta say,Whistler was a nice change for havoing almost no classic rock! I actually heard Travis, Keane, Pearl Jam and Alice and Chains so far.

More later on today (Friday)’s riding! It has snowed ALL DAY and is still snowing as we speak… at 9:30 tonight! I think we’ve received a foot of fresh pow…. great conditions. Here’s me and Jessie at the end of our day today, finishing up on Blackcomb…

Saturday I woke up at 5:45 and hit the road at 6:45 to drive to Big Bear where I was meeting Cheryl and her husband Eric for a morning of practice/warmup riding before my snowboarding trip to Whistler in a little under two weeks.

(here comes Cheryl)

We were pleasantly surprised by the conditions! They had made a bunch of snow and there was at least two feet of coverage on all the open runs. (Coloradans and others, please don’t mock us about our lack of snow here in the local mountains)

(snowmaking machines below Chair 5)

The temperature was like Goldilocks’ porridge - not too hot and not too cold, just right! Runs were a teeny bit icy in places but for the most part it was as good as it gets at Snow Summit. Plus, there were NO crowds… we think everybody was getting in a last day of Christmas shopping! What a pleasant surprise.

Bonus… we left before 1pm so we got the “Getaway voucher” for $19 off our next ticket. All in all, a great day at Snow Summit!

(pizza & beer after our riding.)