Whistler Day 3

9th January

Skiing Day 1 and 30cm of snow overnight

After a very late snow season, Whistler and the mountains received 30cm of snow over night and it was still snowing. Sounds like that should be a great thing, and it is, except for;

- it slows the start of everything as they sort out avalanche control and groom the runs

- staff are delayed by road conditions

- a lot of employees in Whistler have an 11cm (or 15 or 20cm rule) written into their contract, i.e. 11cm over night, you get to delay your start time to allow for an early morning ski session. This means the mountain is busy.

We met our ski instructor, from England, and like many of the resort workers, here on a travel visa. We headed up to the learners zone and after a quick ski over the bunny hill to proove we had some experience, we headed up to the top. Although this was not before Joshua face planted in the powder. Fortunately it is soft, so we all had a good laugh.

The top was wild and windy with snow still coming down. Our first run down, was beautiful and powdery. My confidence slowly returned on the softer snow and I remembered I could still ski.

Sitting on an open chair lift back up was hard with an icy wind and snow coming at our face. But my late morning the snow and clouds settled and touches of sun beamed across the mountains.

We had a beautiful day skiing, but by the time our lesson had finished and we met Steve for lunch, the kids were exhausted and happy to spend the afternoon playing in the fresh snow.

Isabelle has packed it in! We couldt
devour enough carbs when we got
back to the room.

After a repeat of Peaked Pies, we wandered around the village and found a neat patch of fresh snow to play in. Fresh powder is the best for making snow balls and snow men as you can actually roll a snowball and more snow sticks to it. I am not sure that you can really roll a Calvin and Hobbs style snow man, but it certainly helps for building the size. Having a snow ball fight is also a sinch - you can make the snowballs really easy and unless you spend hours compressing the snowball, the snowballs dont hurt too much.

Depending on who you talk to, below is Samantha or George and some photos of our play around the village.