Finally some new snow has arrived! Yesterday and today have seen cloudy skies and the first snow for weeks, bringing an end to the depressing conditions we've been experiencing recently.
None of us went up the slopes on Saturday 8th or Sunday 9th. I spent Saturday shopping, then looking after Nasya, who had arrived in Whistler feeling a bit down. I spent the afternoon at home with her and Darius, her son. In the evening we met up with Bob, Matt, Stan, Kinga and Josh for a great meal in the Keg.
Sunday was another quiet day, with a trip to the physio and the gym. Bob and I swapped rooms, then watched Meet the Parents.
Andy was stuck in Vancouver with car problems for most of Monday 10th and Tuesday 11th. It now seems that the crash last week damaged the roof badly enough that it needs replacing, so it will probably end up being a write-off.
Bob and I spent Monday with Matt on Whistler, playing on the rails and spines in the terrain park. We went up Whistler again on Tuesday, with both Matts and Rolla, spending most of the day on Harmony, with a quick visit to Peak.
We popped into the Dubh Linn Gate pub for a few beers when we got off the mountain on Tuesday, then went home for a game of golf and some pizza before meeting up with Mike in Tommy's.
Wednesday 12th didn't go quite according to plan, as we'd forgotten about the England/Australia football match. We were all a bit hungover from the previous night, so ignored what snow there was and went to a pub for some food and the footie.
The football was a disaster (3-1 to Australia!) and I wished I'd gone up the hill instead. We consoled ourselves with a two-round game of golf on the PS2, which I somehow won on 12 under par.
In the evening we wondered about planning a couple of days away, in either Seattle or Vancouver Island, but apathy prevented us from doing anything.
Thursday 13th began with us accepting that we weren't going away. Once we'd come to terms with that we headed up Blackcomb and tried to make the most of the rapidly diminishing snow.
Bob and Matt caught a bus down to Vancouver in the evening, while Andy and I hosted Mike, Lexi and other Matt at the Palace.
Friday 14th began reasonably well, with a few runs on Whistler. Andy and I rode faster than ever before down Harmony, then raced down to the village to catch the 13:00 bus to Vancouver for Amrit's party.
I met up with Bob and Matt shopping, then we all went round to Dom's flat and then on to Mack and Amrit's party, where things started to go wrong. We had a game of "Name that Tune", with shots as the prizes. Bob and I both did rather well and consequently had to have several large shots of Jagermeister or vodka.
At some point we moved on to a club and then someone's house, but it's all a bit of a mystery to me.
The line between Friday and Saturday 15th was a bit blurred, but by 06:30 on Saturday we were still awake and I'd gone mad, deciding to head home to Whistler. I slept a bit on the bus, then I arrived in the village to find it snowing for the first time in weeks. I walked home, ate some breakfast, then set off up Blackcomb to make the most of the new snow. It was great up on the glacier and in the Crystal area, but lower down it was quite heavy.
Having had less than two hours sleep I began flagging pretty quickly and had to stop every now and again for a rest at the side of the slope. Eventually I gave up, headed down and went straight to bed for a couple of hours.
After a shower I felt a little better, so had some food and watched Me, Myself & Irene, which was terrible.
I woke up at about 07:10 on Sunday 16th and could hear the rain outside, so decided it might be worth getting up for some fresh powder. The report said there were 13cm of fresh snow, so I caught the 07:45 bus and was in the first 20 or so people waiting for Blackcomb Gondola to open. At 08:20 it began and I went straight up to Jersey Cream, riding down Wishbone while I waited for some of the high lifts to open.
As I got back down the chair I noticed 7th Heaven was open. 7th Heaven is a huge area of wide runs with trees between and is one of the best places in the world to be on a powder day. I took Jersey Cream up again and headed straight there.
I arrived on the 7th Avenue cat-track, but crossed over the first two runs on 7th, and found myself staring down Panorama with only 3 ski-tracks on it. Very kindly the people before me had stuck to the edges and I was able to blast down the middle of the run, singing loudly as I ploughed through the untouched snow.
There wasn't a single person waiting when I arrived at the chair, so I hopped on feeling very excited about the run down. As I reached the top I saw a few people coming down and had a bit of a trauma trying to decide which route down would be least used but eventually settled on Cloud Nine, which has been one of our favourite groomed runs down 7th Heaven.
There were a few tracks ahead of me but I managed most of the run without crossing any of them. I had a superb run, better than anything since Christmas day. Over the last few weeks we've got used to the boards sliding across the packed snow when we turned, but the new snow meant there was no sliding at all. That meant much more confidence in the turns, which meant much more speed. Which was nice.
There were a few people at the chair when I arrived, although not really a queue. On the way up I decided to try the trees on skiers' right of the lift, which has had some amazing snow in the past. I found some of the bigger powder fields but they'd already been carved up and I ended up hitting the ice through the fresh snow when I turned.
When I reached the top of the chair again I found a group waiting for the Glacier to open. I wondered about hanging around but didn't really want to wait, so headed as far left as possible to Lakeside Bowl for another run. The bowl was closed, so I ended up heading down Cloud Nine again, then got back to the top to find the fence had gone and Glacier was open.
I headed straight down Ridge Runner, past the Crystal Hut, then switched to Rock'n'Roll for the a rapid descent to the Excelerator chair. From there I headed to Glacier chair where I met up with Stan. We took the Horstman T-Bar back to 7th Heaven and took a run down Cloud Nine. It was getting a bit bumpy, so we tried a new route through some trees to skiers' left of the lift, where we found some decent snow.
We dropped down to the Showcase T-Bar hoping to get over into Glacier bowl but it was still closed for avalanche bombing, so we took Ridge Runner down to Crystal Hut then Stan introduced me to Fraggle's Rock. From there we took Rock'n'Roll back down to Excelerator, finishing with a horrendous cat-track which was like riding on sticky glass. Well, probably - I've never actually tried.
Having fallen over on the road and taken out a skier, I felt in need of a break. We paused briefly at Glacier Creek for lunch, then took Glacier chair and Showcase up to the top and were surprised to find the group waiting for Glacier Bowl to open was still there. We hiked up to the gate to find out how long it was going to be but as we arrived the group cheered and about 30 of us surged forward along the wind-lip, hoping to get the first tracks down into the bowl.
Stan and I hiked about half-way along the wind-lip then dropped into some great powder in the bowl, steering to the right to avoid the majority of the tracks. The bowl is enormous, so there were huge areas where no-one had been before us, and we found ourselves once again riding virgin powder. It was a brilliant run down, at least as good as the first run of the day down Cloud Nine.
We returned to 7th Heaven for one final trip down Cloud Nine, then headed home down Green Line and Cruiser. Another fantastic day! | 
