This is the last year DCPS is having a week long February break, so we didn't want to let it go to waste. But since Sheridan didn't have that week off, we decided that Owen and I would have a Father-Son ski trip out West. We were a bit late getting started in our planning, but the stars aligned for us to go back to Whistler for the first time since 2015. The snow was historically bad that trip, so Owen and I had always wanted to go back and see what Whistler-Blackcomb was like with proper snow all the way down to the base – thankfully the snow this year didn't disappoint.
Our flight out was long but uneventful with a three hour layover in Toronto and a two and a half hour shuttle ride from Vancouver to Whistler Village. It was pouring rain in the Village Monday night when we arrived at Whistler Peak Lodge, but just a few hundred feet up the mountain the snow was falling. We took the Whistler Gondola up as soon as it opened in the morning to hunt for some fresh powder. Our plan was to make our way back to the Harmony and Symphony bowls, but Harmony didn't open until after 10 and it turned out Symphony was closed due to high avalanche risk from a shifting cornice. We managed to satisfy our powder craving though when we went to the top of Whistler Peak and found the black diamond Bagel Bowl. The visibility was terrible but the powder was amazing! Later we took the Peak-to-Peak Gondola across to Blackcomb, took the t-bar up and hiked over the pass to Blackcomb Glacier where we found even more amazing powder!
After the first day the temperatures plummeted with mid week highs in the single digits and lows on the mountain around -16F! Due to the cold, the high Alpine and Peak-to-Peak lifts weren't running, so we started the day off on Blackcomb – focusing on some runs around Jersey Cream, including three runs on a slalom course (I took 2 out of 3 races over Owen, still have it!) before trying out 7th Heaven and deciding that was too cold. We skied to the bottom and avoided the Whistler Gondola line with a ride up Fitzsimmons to Garbanzo and some lovely fast runs down Dave Murray Downhill – the 2010 Men's Olympic Downhill run. We repeated the Fitzsimmons to Garbanzo trick on Thursday morning to avoid the lines and had a great morning avoiding crowds and cold by looping runs around Garbanzo and the Creekside Gondola. Our luck ran out after lunch when the Gondola stalled for twenty minutes while we were in line – at least it was warm down there and we could always bail out of the line if it was stuck too long we told ourselves. We decided to work our way over to Harmony where on our fist ride up the lift stalled in an exposed spot in the high Alpine. The first ten minutes stuck there weren't too bad – we had a great view of the Harmony bowl and some gnarly terrain and saw two skiers send it off of some 20-30 foot cliffs. After nearly a half hour stuck on the lift though we were pretty much ready to pack it in for the day. Thankfully when they finally got us running again they gave us $20 in lunch vouchers and closed the lift for the day.
Our last day was a bit warmer and finally sunny with amazing views. We started out on Blackcomb and made our way up to 7th Heaven for some amazing views and fast groomers. Owen banged his hand ona pole coming in a bit too fast into the lift line, but it didn't seem to hurt too much when I tried squeezing different spots on it. Still, we decided to take a break, grab some lunch, and take the Peak-to-Peak glass bottom gondola back over to Whistler Mountain. We skied a few of our favorite mid-mountain runs, and then noticed that Symphony was finally open, so we raced over to the last bit of the mountain we hadn't explored. We managed to find some more powder way over in Rhapsody Bowl and then skied down into the Glissando Glades, before booking it back to Whistler Peak chair before it closed to finish off our trip with a run from the peak to the village. We just made it in time and I'm so glad we did since the sky was amazing at the peak. We took in some of the most amazing views of the whole trip, and that last run down from the peak was a worthy close to an epic week of skiing.
While the skiing was the whole reason for the trip, we also had lots of fun off of the slopes. In the evenings we had some great dinners together (21 Steps was particularly tasty for future reference), watched some movies (Owen picked X-Men First Class and I convinced him to watch O' Brother Where Art Thou?), and generally had a nice time hanging out. The trip back turned out to be exhausting – 5:45am shuttle ride, delayed flight, missed connection, really swollen hand (uh oh, remember that 7th Heaven run...) stuck in Toronto overnight, finally made it home a day late without our bags, and Owen needing a trip to urgent care to check out his hand (but that's another story)...
(click here for all the pictures)
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