Whistler Week 2 Highlights
I’ve been remiss at posting so here are the highlights. As the group got bigger, people broke out to smaller groups and moved more independently of each other. Most of the highlights are from the evening hours.
Monday
Some of us stayed in due to injuries - Brian, Elad, and myself. Some went skiing - Mike, Bettina. Some tried to go snowmobiling. I say tried because Matt and Rob came back not an hour later from embarking on snowmobiling because they couldn’t get to the base. A logging truck lost it’s load in front of a bus and blocked off the two lane highway. Needless to say, they were disappointed.
Earlier in the week, Brian had signed up for wi-fi access with his Princeton alumni account and the owner, another Princeton alumni, noticed. Brian and Matt, who actually knew him, went out for drinks with him. It turns out that he’s stuck in Whistler and can’t get to Squamish, where he lives, because of the logging accident. He joins us for a spectacular dinner that Rob whips together - steaks on the grill and tricolor pasta.
We then head out to Citta to enjoy some drinks. Low and behold, some of the beers are not available because the delivery truck is stuck on the other side of the accident. Tonight is also the night we realize that Matt and Bettina have talent - true talent of burping. Bettina manages to turn heads of people she meets for the first time. Let the contest begin.
Tuesday
Pretty lazy day today. For dinner we made reservations for Earls, a suggestion from a friend of mine. The food was good. The waitress was very affirmative - every time you asked for something she answered with three to four affirmative responses - yeah, sure, okay, absolutely - all stringed together. The ambience, once they turned off the hockey game, was great. The Amarone that Matt selected was also yummy.
Wednesday
Boris, Theresa, Jonah, and John arrived today for the summit. To welcome the rest of the team, we went to the Whistler Brew House for dinner. Halfway through dinner, Bettina and I ended up at the women’s bathroom together and noticed a coin-op dispenser. One of the items was labelled as adult novelty but had a Looney Toons tattoo sign. What could this be? Lonney Toons imprinted condoms? Neither of us had a CAD$2 so we went downstairs and asked the table. Vu-tang offered up her $2. We go and drop the $2 coin in and wait in anticipation. We open it at the table and was sorely disappointed to see that it was just 2 tattoos. It could have been SOO much better. We are awarded musical renditions from Bettina and Matt throughout dinner. As we finish dinner, there are a few people with full beers left at the table including Matt. He decides to chug his pint in search of THE BURP. The minute he does, everyone could see the regret on his face. Bettina officially wins when upon exiting the restaurant Matt pukes in the snow. =( Go Bettina!
Thursday
Today was a work day. Pretty productive. We have dinner reservations at Hy’s Steakhouse. The filet mignon was very good as was the spinach and sugar snap peas. We also rented gear so we can go out to Fresh Tracks tomorrow. While there’s no snow, we wanted to at least get to the top and enjoy a couple of runs together.
Friday
Went out for Fresh Tracks. Got to the top, had breakfast and boarded a few runs with Brian. We found snow on the part of the runs and I was able to link turns all the way down. However, the bottom of the trail had a layer of crunchy ice and I froze up all over again. I realized how much fear I had of hurting myself and how much that sound of scraping down the hill scared the living shit out of me! By noon we were back in the conference room working. Today was an extremely productive day on the work front.
At 5, some of us went snowmobiling. I was a bit nervous at first but the whole experience was exhilarating! It’s a little unnerving that the skis have a mind of their own and want to find grooves in the snow. But once the guide let us loose on the lake, I was able to get used to what full throttle feels like and was hooked for the rest of the trip. Elad, however, managed to flip his snowmobile on the lake. To his credit, that particular snowmobile apparently sits much higher and feels less stable.
This is all of us at the top of the mountain by the bowl. Since it was night time, we couldn’t go to the bowl.
Saturday
Saturday started off as a work day and some of us went up at 2 to meet up with the rest. Rob volunteered to give me a snowboarding clinic so I accepted. However, the series of chair lifts we took didn’t land us on that many greens. So we decided to take one last chair, jersey Cream, to get to Easy Out. However, from the top of Accelerator to Jersey Cream was one of the scariest things I had to do. First off, there was a blue dropoff with moguls. After staring at it for 10 minutes, I decided to walk a bit over to the side to get to the broader blue run with no moguls. After scraping down that, we headed to the right and arrived at what seemed an ever steeper hill to the bottom of the chair lift. I grit my teeth and scraped/leafed all the way down. I knew if I fell I would have no luck getting back up on the icy hill. I manage to make it down but it pretty much drained me of any energy. By the time we got to the top of Jersey Cream, I was already tired and thirsty. Heading over to Easy Out, I managed to rack up style points for faceplants among other graceful falls. As we got to the mouth of the trail, there was a black diamond run to the right and because I was so nervous about it and staring at it, I managed to fall right at the opening of the black diamond. Now, to this day, I haven’t figured out how to get up facing the right direction. So I get up backwards from my knees and then do a heelside turn to scrape down the trail facing down the mountain. The problem here was that the black diamond opening was on my right and I felt myself slipping closer and closer to the opening as I tried to get up. I made an executive decision to call it a day and let Rob board a couple of more runs. I downloaded on a serious of lifts and made it back home. For dinner we split up into smaller groups and Bettina, Mike, Dalto, Boris, Metzer and I went to Black’s pub for a laid back dinner and drinks.
Sunday
Most of the group went up the mountain on Sunday but I was wiped so I opted not to. Of course the day I decide not to go up, it starts dumping snow in the afternoon. *sigh* I did manage to get some work done however. For scrapped around the kitchen for dinner and headed out for last night of drinks at 9. I dropped some of that Super Bowl winnings on drinks and was sad to leave Whistler Village for the last time.
Monday
Since we had 9 people going ot the airpot today, we rented 3 cars. Ilanna, Brian and I drove. Highway 99, the Sea-to-Sky Highway, is absolutely gorgeous. Most of us were on the Air Canada flight to JFK at 3:30. When the plane arrives, there’s some mechanical difficulties but allow us to board. Then they decide to disembark us because they realize that they can’t fix the plane in NY. So we go to another gate and board an hour and a half later. We watched ‘The Prestige’ and then proceeded to play 4-way Bomberman on the DS. How time flies. We land at 1:30 and I get home at 2AM. Time to sleep.
