Tandems Collide

Apologies for the extreme delay since my last posting. We've been running around quite a bit and I've been without Internet access for the past few days. Instead of giving one large brain dump of the last few days, I'll continue to parse it up a bit, for ease of ingestion...

Monday was spent riding Whistler/Blackcomb. What a mountain set! The other resorts we've visited have all been great for unique reasons, but for sheer size and variety of terrain, pitch, and snow there has been no comparison to Whistler. We were sad to have only afforded ourselves one day to ride, but we were happy to have at least enjoyed that one day. We continued to be spoiled by fresh powder and enjoyed quite a few runs of riding atop a pillowy highway of bliss. To get a sense of riding in fresh powder (for those of you who may be alien to this concept) imagine opening a new container of rich sour cream. You know the first spoonful that you carve out, where the spoon's trail is distinct and the cream doesn't provide any resistance, only gently guides the spoon across it's top, allowing you to plunge as deeply as you wish while still maintaining it's smooth lines? Now imagine riding on that spoon at 50 km/h and the tub of sour cream is the size of a backyard pool, your path shooting out behind you effortlessly until your exhausted little legs beg for mercy but your inner child screams for more. It's kinda like that.

For our first few warm-up runs we were forced to stick near the top of the mountain because there was heavy cloud cover limiting visibility throughout the mid-section of the mountains and we needed to wait until the sun could burn it off. The sheer size of the two mountains is very difficult to describe. Basically, I took one picture, here when we were already above the cloud level of the peak of Blackcomb, and just this area alone I would say would compare to Blue Mountain. And this is only the portion that is above the clouds, on one half of the mountains (as Whistler too has a peak terrain area).

I am proud to say that Robyn and I did manage to ski both the Easternmost run and the furthest West slope. We did our best to see and snowboard as much as we could. This entailed a lot of traversing throughout the morning which left us tired and unfulfilled by mid-day, so for the afternoon we focused on finding a handful of runs that we enjoyed and sticking to them. We got in a lot of snowboarding, and I continue to be impressed with Robyn (and my) progression of skills. Things we were reluctant to do only two weeks ago we now jump into without a second thought. This was going to be our last snowboarding adventure for quite some time, and I can happily say that we made the most of it. We will wait with vapoured breathe until we can 'shred' again.

Kicking Arse in Golden

After movies and a reasonably early night last night we were up at 7 this morning to hit the road from Banff to Golden. Before departing, though, we were forced to realize the use of the key fob for the parking garage that we parked our van in. Our ambitious departure time was delayed when we had to wait for an attendant to open the garage for us. In other news, the Banff Town Hall is not a reliable backup for a parking garage to rely on to help it's customers.

So we were off to Golden by 8am, which is an an hour and 45 minutes from Banff by the way the Googlebird flies.

The drive continues to astound me and much of our car ride was bathed in stunned silence (or at least I like to think so - it was early in the morning for everyone). We drove past Castle Mountain and I took a couple good 'out the window' pics. I'll try to limit these type of pics from now on. Just take my word for it - driving around here is as close to a spiritual pilgrimage as you can take in a Dodge Caravan.

A small bit of stress bubbled to the surface near Field, BC when we nearly ran out of gas. Amy had properly budgeted our petrol needs to get us to the area, but when we sputtered up to the gas station she had in mind we were disappointed to see that it was still closed. With no way of knowing the opening time and a burning desire to get on the slopes she put the car back in gear and we hoped that there was another station nearby. Our nondenominational prayers were answered shortly after and we filled up and eventually pulled into Golden.

Golden is a quintessential small ski town, located at the foot of the dominant resort Kicking Horse. At the base of the mountain we met up with Amy's friends Kevin and Mike who were great boarders and told funny jokes. We geared up, paid up, and gondolad up the mountain. Needless to say, the views en route and at the top of the hill were wonderful. This is exactly what I had in mind when we planned this trip:

It was a perfect day on the slopes - sunny, not too cold, and endless horizons. The place wasn't busy at all, being the middle of the week, and we had our run of the runs.
Things seemed to suit Robyn too...

And the little green dot here... that's her shredding away.

I think this pic of Kev and Mike strikes the perfect pitch:

We skied from 10-4 with a brief 'beer and patio' break and everyone survived the day unscathed. A few minor bumps, bruises, and pulled tendons were easily alleviated in the hot tub of the Golden hotel we're staying in 15 minutes from the resort. It was a great day for us all.

It'll be another early evening tonight and then we're off to Revelstoke tomorrow, 2 hours from here.

Until next time.