Archive for the Category ◊ Whistler ◊
Hi guys,
Sorry for not updating my blog. It became a bit tedious. But I’ve just uploaded a load of videos to my youtube account (http://www.youtube.com/user/richie243), so go and check them out. They span from Xmas till now.
Merry Christmas everyone!
We spent the morning on the mountain and now we are back at the flat cooking the turkey! It should be pretty nice. I will upload some more photos as soon as we’ve taken them. In the mean time, check out my youtube page. I’ve just uploaded a bunch on new videos. Some are pretty funny.
Anyway, hope everyone had a good Christmas.
Rich
So my little bro Drew arrived last night for his Xmas vacation. He got to Whistler around 6.30 and we rushed home to drop off his bags so we could get some shopping in. He wanted to be able to go boarding the first thing the next day and needed to buy a few bits and bobs to do that. I also needed to do a bit of shopping because the temperatures on the mountain had dropped drastically to -25C. Drew needed to buy some boots, so we wondered around Whistler for a bit, going to the stores where I new I would get a decent discount. Drew was looking for a specific pair of shoes that we just couldn’t find. You see, Whistler is a great place to come and ski and snowboard, but they don’t have very many big shops and even those only hold certain brands. So Drew had to settle for some pretty nice Burton White Collection boots. All I’ve got to say is Very white, but nice.
Since the temperature had dropped so much, it wasn’t possible to go boarding with any skin exposed. So we need to buy some face masks. I don’t care who you are, no one can pull off wearing a fitted face mask. Luckily, hardly anyone can recognise you when you where it. You just look silly!
Yesterday was also the first time that I waxed my board. I’d bought all the equipment that I needed gradually thoughout last week. Shopping for cheap waxing gear is hard in Whistler. Everyone wants it, so they can charge what they like. Eventually, ended up getting a complete set for a pretty competitive price. Anyway, back to my original train of thought. Waxing a board is pretty simple stuff. There are a load of tutorials on the web and I attend a free how to class a couple weeks back. I personally enjoy waxing my board, I find it very relaxing and I take my time. Tom, on the other hand saw it as a chore. So did it as quickly as he could. Which in turn made a big mess… I just added to that mess (in smaller quantities though). It’s fair to say I was proud of myself after I was done. I’d waxed my board for the first time and not screwed it up.
This morning we woke up early. This may not seem as anything special, but we always aim to get up early and rarely ever do. Most of the time I end up leaving on my own. So we got up the mountain at a decent time. It was a clear day and we could see all the surrounding mountains. This was my first day back after injuring my back, so I took the first couple slopes nice and slowly. Drew didn’t, he said he was worried that it would take time for him to remember how to board. Bollocks. He was pelting down the mountain at full speed on the first run. I hate to say it, but he’s better than me (for now).
After lunch we decided to test out the new Peak to Peak gondola. It’s the world longest suspension bridge. 4.4km in 11mins. It’s pretty impressive and pretty scary if you are afraid of heights. I made a nice little video of our first trip on the gondola, so go have a look.
Blackcomb is the mountain next to Whistler. Currently, it doesn’t have as many runs open. But it is a lot less busy. Except its mostly ice. Every where you ride you just encounter huge sheets of ice, or fake snow. So on Blackcomb, your either doing a nice turn, then hitting a sheet of ice and sliding uncontrollably for 10m. Or your doing a nice turn and you hit a huge patch of artificial snow and just stop. Atrificial snow is great, but why the hell is it like glue? It’s very hard (I don’t say impossible, cause people can) to go fast in articifial snow. It just sticks to your board.
Lastly, I just want to talk about the Blackcomb godola. Compared to the Whistler gondola, it’s like heaven. You can actually sit down in it and your board isn’t pressed tightly against your lap. It’s outside where it should be.
Hi guys,
We went up Whistler Mountain on Wednesday, the sky was clear and the conditions were amazing. But sadly, this seemed to be a bad omen! This was the day when I would wreck my back and Tom would begin wrecking his bored. Sadly, I didn’t record my fall. But the people who helped me out said that it was an epic fall!
The day started off beautifully, the first warm-up run that we did was pure bliss. It was serine, effortlessly gliding through the snow. One of the best feelings I’ve felt in a while. The second run is where things started to go wrong! Since there hasn’t been that much snow up to now, there are some pretty bare areas on the slope and some of these aren’t marked (they should be…). Tom road over one of these unmarked areas and gouged the bottom of his board. Real bummer since all our boards are brand new.
We decided that we would change piste to avoid these hazards. It was near the end of this run that I crashed! I was ‘feeling’ more confident on my board so I decided to pick up some speed on one of the shallow parts near the end of the run (I had been gradually increasing my speed over the previous couple days). Me being me, I got cocky and went a bit too fast and whilst trying to gradually slow down (instead of hitting the brakes) on my toe edge I over compensated my lean and caught my heel edge (for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, watch this link ‘Catching a heel edge‘ and imagine that, going faster on ice and not rolling out of it).
It’s Saturday night when I’m writing this and though my back is still painful, it’s recovering. My brother arrives tomorrow (whoop whoop) and hopefully I will be about to ride on Monday. Finger crossed.
Hi guys,
Haven’t posted anything in a while so I thought that I would just update you all. It’s still not snowing here in Whistler, which is a major bummer. Haven’t been up on the mountain all week. Don’t see the point. There isn’t any decent snow and it’s all hardpacked so falling over hurts a bit… Don’t really want to hurt myself before the season truely begins. It’s forecast to snow soon. So I think I’ll just be patient and wait.
Not been up to much whilst I’ve been waiting for the snow. Lazing around the flat, going to work. Started to work on a few software projects that we’re trying to complete. Pretty boring stuff…
Might do a little snow dance later. Probably won’t be the only one doing it!
Snow Please!!! .com (See Steve, even got your company name in there! Would be so appropriate to advertise it here in Whistler. Get your shit sorted! lol)
OK,
I’m just going to sum up the rest of the snoaboarding days until today.
Friday has was the only day that it snowed whislt we were boarding. It was AWESOME. A part from that, I’ve been progressing well. I’m more confident on my board and have started to speed down the mountain, which is fun. Just can’t wait till it properly starts to snow so that they will open up the rest of the mountain.
The others are progressing slower than me, but then again, they haven’t spent as much time on the mountain and aren’t as willing to injure themselves to learn. I looked into lessons for them. I might take some park lessons when my bro gets here. Looks really fun. I never realised how much of a toll snowboarding takes on your knees. It’s not the same kind of pressure as skiing, but it’s still pretty tough.
Hi guys,
So Whistler mountain opened a day early (Wednesday 26th November) which is really cool! So we got to get a jump start on learning how to Snowboard. We decided to get up early and try and get up the mountain as soon as possible. The lifts opened at 8.30AM, we aimed to get there at that time so we could get ahead of the queuing. Sadly, everyone had that idea so the queue was ginormous. Surprisingly though the queue was flowing quite qickly, so it only took us 30mins to get to the gondola. Which were then crammed into. The view was amazing. The sky was clear so we could see everything. I did take some pictures, but sadly we had only brought my crappy camera, so they didn’t turn out so great. I will take some more though and post them when I can. The gondala ride from the Village to the Roundhouse (about 3/4 the way up the mountain) takes around 20mins.
Getting to the top of the gondola, I saw what fun lay ahead of me for the rest of the season and I was overjoyed! The feeling of walking onto the pistes on the first day of the season was great. We spent a good 15mins getting ready to go. It was the first time 3 of us had ever been on a snowboard and putting on the bindings and getting up was bit tricky. My first 30mins on my snowboard where some of the most fustrating of my life! I could not control anything. I would get up and hen fall over again. Or I would get up slide down the mountain, then fall over! So I decided that the best way for me to learn was the throw myself down the mountain and learn by making mistakes. And it worked. It took us ±3 hours to get down the first slope, but by that time I was comfortable on my board and only falling over when I did something stupid.
I was happy that by the end of the day I was actually getting turns in. They weren’t pretty or very well controlled, but they were turns 
I’m attaching some youtube videos. They aren’t great, but they’ll have to do. Enjoy 
I went to Squamish the other day. Squamish is a town about 1 hour south of Whistler. It’s small, but seems big because it’s stretched along a huge section of the highway. I went down with Tom because he wanted to treat himself by buying a guitar (pronounced geetar in Canada, go figure) and I need to buy a couple things from Walmart.
When I arrived to Squamish, the first things that I thought was “where the hell are we?” and “where can I get some food?” (I was hungry!). There isn’t much in “downtown” Squamish, but we did manage to find the music store. We spent an age in the music store. Which is fair enough. Tom needed to play quite a few of the guitars before he could decide. But eventually he bought a really nice Seagull (Canadian make) Acoustic/Electric Cutaway guitar and various other bits and bobs.
Walmart is really badly placed in Squamish. There are two bus terminal one at each end. Walmart is exactly in the middle. Since we didn’t know the local bus routes or times we decided to walk, in the dark, along the highway. 20 minutes walking by the side of the road in the cold, carrying guitar equipment. Not fun.
OK, now when I say take the plunge, I mean buying an Ipod. I’ve always wanted one. They’re popular and very easy to use. Not to mention they look good. But I’ve always been opposed to the price. They are just too expensive for what they are. But I need a music player for when I’m riding all the lifts, etc. So I bought one. A nice black 8GB nano. I thought it would be a nice present to myself 
Good news guys, I got a second interview at Buffalo Bills. One of the clubs that I spend a whole day queuing for. Got the phone call at 7PM for an interview at 9PM. Luckily I live right in the middle of town about 400m from the place. Went to the interview, was surprised at home informal it was. I just sat down and had a chat with one of the managers. Once we we’re done, he offered me a job. Sadly not as a barman, but as a host. He also invited me to “Family Dinner” and “Dodgeball”.
Now, whats cool about this company (Gibson Hospitality) that I have been hired for is that every Wednesday, they have something called “Family Dinner”. This is held at one of the three Whistler locations that they have (Buffalo Bills, Tapley’s and Longhorn Saloon) and everyone not working that evening is invited to have a free meal and catch up with people from the other places. Which is cool as it gave me a chance to meet new people.
Also, this company is very into employee morale. So they organise teambuilding events. In this case Dodgeball. Now, I hadn’t played dodgeball since I was a kid. Neither had any of the new people who I was teamed up with. So we had no idea of the rules, or what the hell was going on. Got knocked out in the first round. I did have fun though. Got to know several of the new staff that were hired at the same time as me.
We decided that we need to explore a bit beyond Whistler, we also need to do some ‘cheaper’ shopping. Visiting Vancouver seemed like the perfect solution to both of our problems. After a bit of planning, looking for car hire, bus tickets, etc we decided that renting a car was the most flexible option. Vancouver is a big place and we did not want to get stuck lugging around a load of stuff. Surprisingly, Whistler has only one car rental agency (AVIS). Now, everyone I’ve met in Whislter is friendly. Except the woman working here. She was the most useless and unhelpful person I’ve met. We booked a large car (Hyundai Santa Fe), we get there and she says it’s no longer available and gives us a KIA (for those of you who no nothing about cars, its shit).
The drive down to Vancouver is long. It isn’t that far, but the speed limit is low and the road is very windy. The scenery though is amazing. The views of the mountains and the sea are breathtaking.
So there we are driving down, me navigating. It’s strange having to navigate with a map again. I’m honestly surprised how dependent I have become on GPS. It’s almost scary. Anyway, one of the main reasons we wanted to go down to Vancouver is to do some shopping and get our Social Insurance Numbers. Being the forward thinking people we are we planned our route out before hand (vaguely). Being human, we got a bit lost. Luckily, Vancouver is setup in a grid formation (much like all North American cities) so finding our way back on course wasn’t too hard.
Shopping for snowboard equipment was made extremely simple by the fact that one stretch of road in Vancouver has over half a dozen snowboard shops on it. I thought we would be in and out relatively quickly. Come on, we’re men, we don’t faff around clothes shopping. We’re not women… Well, apparently we are. I’d more or less picked out what I wanted to buy before I went into the shop. Having had a week to just browse and ask questions. My mates hadn’t. So Q&A time added up, but eventually we all left with something. Even though it took us a ridiculous amount of time and put us way behind schedule and it’s dark.
Next stop on our Vancouver journey was IKEA. You have to love IKEA, for house supplies they’re simple, cheap and cheerful. Our flat at the moment only has 3 beds. Problematic when there are 4 people… Luckily, I’d already sorted out a mattress up in Whistler (gold star for me :D), so we didn’t have to worry about hauling that huge thing. We just need the frame, and other bits and bobs for the house. I’m sure everyone has been to IKEA before and knows the general layout of things. It’s pretty much the same over here. IKEA kindly provides everything in nice flat pack format. Easy to move and carry. Except for the “small” bed we wanted. The box was about 3/4 the length of the car. After a bit of dismantling and a lot of compromise, we managed to fit it in the car. The compromise being the two sitting in the back being nice and snug.
Final stop on our trip was the supermarket. This may not sound interesting, but circumstances made it so. You see, the journey time from Vancouver to Whislter is about 2 1/2 hours. We know the the road is closed at 11PM till 2AM and it’s 7.15PM when we get to the supermarket. So we’re in a hurry.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever been to an “American” supermarket. Just think of the biggest British supermarket and double it, oh and everything is in bulk. This was going to be our big shop because it’s a lot cheaper here than Whistler. We didn’t have much time to spend shopping, so we went crazy. Totaled a bill of nearly $500 on food and supplies. Which more or less filled the rest of the car.
All I can say about the return journey was I nervous. It’s dark, the road is windy and we’re going faster than we should (out of need). I’m not saying that Jinesh is a bad driver, it’s just scary not being in control. Whilst driving we catch a sign with road work details. “Closed 10PM to 3AM and 4AM to 6AM”. Shit! So we speed upa bit more. Just our luck, we make it to the start of the road works and we see cars 100m in front of us driving up the highway. Then a maintanence truck pulls infront of us draging ot a barrier. Bollocks! We’re stuck again. For 5 hours.
Being in a cramped car for 5 hours with nothing to do is not fun, even sleep is hard to come by. I can say without a doubt that these were some of the most BORING hours of my life.
