Two more days of boarding

This one starts off a little wordy so if you're like me and need to be visually entertained - there are pictures if you keep scrolling past those annoying letters...  Here's a couple photos of my new socks to give you the strength to push through:

How cute are these?

If you're unsure of what to get me for Christmas, snowboard socks are never a bad choice...

I consider myself very lucky because I get to be on the mountain seven days a week.  However, until work ski-outs start, I only get to be on my board for two out of the seven days.  So I've decided to take full advantage of the two days a week I do have off.  Up until Tuesday, I had been working for the past six days straight.  Needless to say, I was ready for some riding.  I woke up early-ish.  I did let myself sleep in until about 8:30... and yes I am fully aware of how sad it is that I consider not waking up until 8:30, sleeping in.  I got up, got ready, walked outside, and realized that it was raining.  Not really what I was hoping for on my first day off.  But I figure - no worries, it'll be better once I get to the alpine.  I walk the 8 minutes it takes to get to the village and arrive at the Whistler gondola.  My jacket is a bit wet but nothing too serious.  I take the gondola up to the midstation at which point a skier boards.  He was absolutely soaked.  The guy was even wearing Gore-tex outerwear (supposedly "guaranteed to keep you dry").  I was kind of worried at this point but I figured it was alright because I wanted to go up to the peak of the mountain and it couldn't possibly be raining there.  I started chatting with the drenched skier and he informed me that the lifts I wanted to take were closed for the day.  So I was thinking, screw it.  It doesn't matter.  It was my day off and dammit I was gonna get a full day of boarding in.  I did one run on Whistler and didn't like the snow (it was perfect packing snow which is not nice to ski or board on) so I decided to take the Peak 2 Peak (a $51 million gondola that spans 4.4km and connects Whistler and Blackcomb).  On a sidenote, I really do like Blackcomb better than Whistler so if you come and visit you know which one I'll be taking you on.  Here are some pictures from the Peak 2 Peak:

These aren't the best pictures.  Hopefully one of these days I'll get to go out on a clear day and snap a few sweet ones.

It also doesn't help that I'm using the camera on my blackberry.  There's no way my good camera would have survived the conditions of the past two days.

This is for my fellow blackberry users who play the game Pixelated.  I want these pants.

There was one recently opened lift (Crystal chair) on Blackcomb so I decided to go explore some new runs.  It was a good decision.  Although it was still wet, the snow was better than the stuff I was riding on Whistler.  So far, the Crystal runs are definitely my favourites.  After about four straight runs from the Crystal chair, the lifty at the bottom told me I was crazy to still be out boarding because I was soaking wet.  My jacket, my pants, my gloves, my neck-warmer, my sweatshirt, my base layer, my undies - all drenched.  Riding the lift was the worst part because I just had to sit there in my wet gear which made me even colder.  You don't notice it so much while you're boarding though so I kept going until the lifts closed. 

Chili + hot chocolate = the best way to warm up on a cold day.

That was Tuesday.  Wednesday was a completely different ball game.  Picture this: winds so strong that a chair lift carriage came inches from smashing into the support beam, white-outs so bad at times you couldn't see 20 feet in front of you and pine tree branches being blown off trees and onto the runs.  That sums up Wednesday in a nutshell.  There was a fair bit of fresh powder.  After the hell that was my last powder day, I got some tips on how to survive the next one.  Basically, keep your nose up and cruise; don't try to do too much... just float.  I had a bit more success than my last time out, although the snow was not nearly as deep.  After a couple runs down Wishbone and Zigzag (here's a trail run map in case you want to know which runs I'm talking about: http://media.intrawest.com/whistler/maps/trailmap1011.pdf ) I decided to go back to Crystal because of how much I enjoyed it on Tuesday.  I boarded the lift with two skiers (one of whom was sporting these skis http://www.altrec.com/images/shop/detail/swatches/HEA/29074.72976_d.jpg .  The lift was moving at a snail's pace.  It probably took a good 25 to 30 minutes (the chair lifts automatically slow down when the winds are high) to get to the top when it normally takes 5 in ideal conditions.  Thankfully I've started bringing my ipod when I go boarding.  It's nice to have a soundtrack to my day.  The winds were so bad at this point that we were getting pounded with snow that was being blown off the trees.  It was quite cold.  What was worse was actually how much we were swinging side to side.  When we were approaching the top of the lift, the winds picked up even more and the chair came quite close to crashing into the support beam.  Thankfully that didn't happen.  We arrived at the top relatively unscathed but were met with white out conditions.  After you make it past the first bit of the run you're alright because everything's a bit more sheltered.  I enjoyed the snow in the main run but did not appreciate the 2km of severely icy cat tracks (very narrow, flat runs designed for skiers) that I was forced to use at the bottom to get back to the lift... falling on hard ice is no fun.

The conditions mid-run in the Crystal zone.

I found this funny.  I was sitting in the exact same place when I took this picture and the previous one.  There was this one patch of blue sky and the rest was gray.

I had to snap a photo of these pants.  The picture doesn't really capture how incredibly florescent they were... but trust me - they were blinding.  Pants don't need to be that bright unless you're using them to help land an airplane.

So after seven days on the mountain, I'm getting much more confident on my board.  I've gone from a hesitant falling leaf on greens to carving with good speed on blues.  I might give a black run a shot in the next couple weeks. 

Stay tuned for more blogs... if the black diamonds don't destroy me.

Nat

ps. Keep commenting, but leave your names!  I can't always tell who the anonymous folk are... except if your name is Moira because it's pretty obvious ;)