Islands in the clouds

‎View from whistler peak across the valley, with one of the lower peaks just breaking the cloud base. Skiing lower down in the top of the cloud level there was diamond dust in the air where the ice crystals were catching the sun, and just the very finest layer settling out on skis and hat, so it officially counts as a white xmas...

Merry Christmas!

This last week has been rather busy for me too. As a member of the local choir – The Whistler Singers – we have been in great demand this week. From final rehearsals in preparation for our choir concert – A Whistler Christmas - on Monday, followed by a performance at the Fairmont Chateau (with the children’s choir) to welcome Santa and finally the 31^st Annual Christmas Eve Carol Service in the ballroom at the Westin, in front of about 1,500 people with more at the back in the foyer! I was rather hoarse by the end of it.

In addition, I've been busy in the kitchen too. Making four lots of duck confit, followed by Cassoulet, lots of different soups, baking cakes and biscuits and making nibbles for when the skiers come in as well as normal meals in the evening. Today it’s going to be filet of pork in sour cream pastry (aka boiled baby to some of our friends due to the unappetising look of it before its cooked) so the bottles of bubbles aren't coming out until I've finished with knives! I've learned my lesson in recent years and have the scars to prove it!

Kevin found a Christmas tree on the slopes yesterday and brought it back to the apartment. I did enquire as to whether it was one he had ‘created’ during one of his acrobatic somersault moments, but alas, no. I made a stand for it and decorated it with some mardi gras beads I had brought with me.

As you can see, it fits in quite well with the table décor J

Anyway, time to go and create some mayhem in the kitchen.

Merry Christmas everyone 

Yuletide, eh!

I found this specimen at vancouver airport last night in the rain. He's here until jan 5th, and has already done several cartwheels and head plants in the powder, so has entertainment value..

Horrible drive back up the sea to sky last night - heavy rain and cloud in the dark turned to slush and  snow as we approached whistler‎ - even with the 4wd and winter tyres it was slippery and interesting - maybe if it had actually been colder it would have been a bit stickier.

Shortest day so yuletide greetings to all...

Winter week 2

Its finally started snowing in the village - all we've had this low down for the past 2 weeks has been rain - so its all looking a lot more wintery, and they have been wrapping just about every tree up the village walk in xmas lights so its also more festive. Of course it does mean that there is almost as much light coming through the Venetian blinds at night as there is during the day. Maria has draped her mardi gras beads around the apartment but given the lights outside having our own tree seems a little unnecessary

More of the mountain opened up over the weekend including both peaks, so there is probably about 4x the skiable terrain now available not including the off-piste bowls, and the last dump of snow has stayed in pretty good condition at the higher levels. I've been playing a little on the moguls and piste edges to work on my technique, and i'm definitely improving every day, although its still a lot more tiring than on piste. Weekends have been fairly busy but weekdays are still nice and quiet, although I expect that will change next week as the xmas crowd starts rolling in. I've skied 11 days so far so am well over half way to paying off my season pass compared to the day rate, and i'm skiing a little longer each day, although still doing mornings only and having lunch back at the apartment. Forecast for the next week is some snow every day, so we may get a white xmas at last...

2015 summer plans

We have decided to stay on the west side of the US next summer and do the rockies and west coast loop. The Reynolds are planning to come out to the Grand Canyon and California in August, so it gives us a chance to catch up with them again.

as a basic timeline we are thinking about:

• may - vancouver island, leave canada (by may 10th), maybe alaska round trip cruise from seattle, washington state, seattle, oregon inland, bend, terrebonne, maybe inland to yellowstone
• june - colorado, denver, great sanddunes, mesa verde, canyon of the ancients,
• july - utah, monument valley, bryce canyon, zion, arizona, 
• august - arizona, grand canyon north rim (4th), california, yosemite (7th), sequoia , santa barbara (14th)
• september - california, monterey, san francisco, napa valley
• october - oregon coast, washington, back up to canada for the winter (maybe)

I'm sure there will be lots of other places to visit along this circuit, and we may choose to leave Yellowstone until another spring when we head across the north of the US to the east coast, so nothing is set in stone except the dates specified. Open to suggestions of additional destinations, and if anyone else fancies meeting us anywhere along this timeline let us know.

Its only 5000 miles so quite a short year by recent standards....

Winter week 1

Its been a mixed first week skiing since we got back to Whistler - 3 days of sub-zero clear skies conditions on the mountain, 1 day of wet snow, 1 OK day once I got above the valley cloud base, another day of wet snow. Decided today was going to be a rest day anyway as the forecast was heavy rain all the way up the mountain, and as it turns out all but 1 low level lift are currently closed, probably due to high winds - there is a series of fairly serious storms and unseasonably warm weather hitting the southern BC coast at the moment and flooding warnings for north vancouver.

The thighs have been holding up OK with the new skis - figure the cycling before we went back to the UK helped a bit with that - but everything else has taken a bit of a battering and is complaining after a couple of hours, so I've just been skiing mornings so far. In my defence as I'm skiing solo i'm basically running laps on the chair lifts and not stopping on the slopes, so keeping up a fair pace. And there are only a few lifts and runs open as its still early season.

11 days until Kevin arrives as our first visitor - hopefully more of the mountain will be open by then, and I can last a bit longer on the slopes.

Another minor project success

‎The apartments we are staying in don't have boot driers in the ski locker room, and I failed to buy one at walmart last time we were in the US as they were all sold out. So, nicked the mains cabinet cooling fan from the old TV bay in Badger that is no longer needed now we have a flat screen, and some waste pipe I had left over from fixing the sink in the slide out, plus some plywood left over from making the room divider and a bit of duct tape and hey presto, one home made boot/glove drier. And if you want warm air, stand it in front of the baseboard heater...

I'm such a cheapskate :-)

And this is what we came back for

‎Just managed to get up for an hour before the lifts closed for a play on the blades. Usual first day aching feet but otherwise not too bad.

Need to wax the new skis and fit the bindings tonight and then can take them up for a spin tomorrow

Bye Bye Blighty, welcome back to Canada (sort of)

our manic month back in the UK has come to an end. It was great catching up with everyone and thanks to everyone who put us up, especially Knees and Clive for feeding me so much curry and lamb and living with the consequences. We got done some of what we wanted to on the house, and caught up with family, friends and neighbours pretty much every day we were back, so time well spent.

They let us back into Canada after a fairly rigorous questioning about why we are spending so much time here and so little time at home, but showed them the apartment rental agreement and the canadain bank balance to prove that we do have a plan to leave and enough funds to last us until that point - kind of expected, but a little wearing at 4:00am by the body clock.

Head up to whistler tomorrow, assuming we can get a jump start for the car, and start the 5 month ski-fest. Living on soup to detox until Kevin arrives just in time for Yule...