Home Sweet Home

Home Sweet Home.

Our time in Whistler is over. It was a great season - fun times with people we met out there, nice skiing and what may be their best snow year in 15 years! We packed up the car, and did the drive in one straight 31.5 hour shot. Taking turns sleeping makes it go a little faster, and we lucked out with pretty clean and ice-free roads.

We got to do some fun math thinking on the road. Here's one of them:
1. The 2004 Toyota Matrix has a goofy gas tank gage. From somewhere right around 20% full to below the "E" line is only about 15 miles of actual driving.
2. There are some areas, particularly one in North Dakota, where it is 43 miles between towns, plus an additional 10 miles if you miss the really-really-small-town exit before that.
3. 43 plus 10 is 53. This is quite a bit more than 15 miles. 53 minus 15 is 38 miles.
4. Once the Matrix gas gage is at the "E", you have about 37.8 miles until the car dies. 37.8 miles is less than 38 miles.

We ended up running out of gas. After a half hour of driving with it well below the "E" mark, it started sputtering on the freeway, which was very close to an exit ramp where a sign claimed there was a gas station. Unfortunately it was a mile or so off the freeway. Fortunately the exit ramp was downhill which seemed to have the right angle to slosh a little more gas in the lines, which gave us enough to sputter up the next hill. The car died just before the top of that hill- we put it in Neutral, coasted to the top and just barely had enough momentum to get over the top of the next little incline and start coasting downhill again into the gas station. All in all - we coasted about 1/8 mile, straight into the gas station. Whew- that was a little closer than we were aiming for! :-)

Jodi got some nice pics of me

Jodi stayed inbounds and got some cool pics of me coming back in one of the backcountry chutes to Blackcomb the other day. Here I am!

In the first pic I'm just to the right of center turning near some rocks. In the others I'm easy to find.

So Sore!

Maybe it was so many hours in planes and airports on Tuesday. Skiing so much yesterday certainly contributed, too. But we're sore!

Based on Ryan Steglich's recommendation from when he was here, we're going to spend the day at this place and have some sort of massagey hot-and-cold tubby experience today. Zoom!

http://www.scandinave.com/en/whistler/

Skiing knee-deep!

One person who's lived in Whistler for 8 years said yesterday ended up being "one of his best three days".  Whee!   We ended up having 14 inches of new snow, which was on top of 55 inches of snow over the last week. The first 55 inches covered up the old packed and icy snow and filled stuff in, and the 14 inches of new snow was fluffy, and depending on how the wind blew it, was thigh-high in a lot of places!

We hit the lift line a half hour before it opened and there was already a pretty good line of people waiting to get the "freshies".  On our ride up we could see those first-in-line people skiing down and getting "stuck" on the medium blue run under the lift - the snow was so deep that plowing through it slowed everything down so much that the slope wasn't steep enough. We headed straight to a steeper black run and it was awesome! And the best part - since it was mid-week, there weren't too many people so we got 5-6 nice runs before all of the new powder was skied out, and a few good ones after that too.

I (Jodi) don't have a lot of experience with deep powder and could definitely use a few more days to "practice".... can we have, say 12 more days like this before we have to leave? please?

Back from Cancun--- Snowing in Whistler!

Just got back to our place from our Cancun trip--- thanks Tom, Jodi, and John! What fun!

Looks like Whistler had 20" of fresh snow this morning, and as we were driving in it was pounding, with about 6" already sitting on the streets. I guess tomorrow we have to throw on the snow clothes and get right back into the groove!!

Camping!

We had a nice time camping. The winds were pretty low, the stars and moon were out for part of the night, and we were toasty warm in our awesome fluffy sleeping bags after getting the clammy sweaties dried off from the trip in. The next morning the sun came out, warmed up the tent, and gave us beautiful WARM sunshine to do a few skin-up-and-ski-down trips on a great powder run just outside of our tent.

Backpacks ready for the ski lift - on a four-person lift, we each get a seat and each backpack gets a seat along side of us!

Chris goes for a ski run before dinner

A sliver of moon and thin clouds early in the night

While climbing up for a ski run,  Chris took a picture looking out over the vista with Jodi climbing for a ski run on the left, and the tent in the middle plateau.

Fun shredding powder on our own private slope!

Beautiful day to go Camping!

Time for our yearly winter camping effort! Hehe. Today we have partly cloudy skies and not far to travel to get to camp. We'll ride the lifts to the top of Blackcomb and skin out the back, using the same route we typically do.

About a 500' ski descent will bring us to a very small glacier, next to which we will set up our tent! Lots of mellow powder slopes to ski from there, and it's supposed to be full sun tomorrow.

Can't wait to see the view in the morning when the sun comes up!

Hiking in the Blackcomb Backcountry; Watching Luge!

Steglich got a couple beautiful pics of Dan and me while we were hiking yesterday. I'm the red pants. Very pretty afternoon!

A couple days ago we went to the Whistler Sliding Center, where they had the Olympic bobsled, luge, and skeleton last year, and got to see the New Zealand team practicing. They go FAST!

Very slightly impolite language by Ryan here when the luge caught him by surprise!

Fun day touring with Steg and Dan!

Dan, Ryan and I did some hiking and skiing yesterday. Lotsa sun!

Sunshine and Testosterone

Another nice sunny day in the backcountry. I (Jodi) did another super fun Roxy womens ski camp over the weekend, and the boys (Ryan and Chris, and their local ski-celebrity friend Chad) hit the backcountry for some "gnarly rad thrashing"!

Ryan outskiing Chad

Chad leaving a dust trail

Backcountry with Orla

Orla and I  (Jodi) met in a ski school class in early December, and we've had fun being ski buddies (and of course apres-ski buddies too!). Yesterday while Ryan and Mel were skiing and doing a ski class, we took Orla on her first backcountry experience.  Photographer Chris got a few photos for Orla to hang on her refridgerator!

Awesome Video of Whistler Area

Someone here in Whistler did an awesome video of the village and the ski area. It's called "XXS" for extra-extra small, because it was shot with a special lens that makes your eye thing everything is miniaturized. Very cool- check it out!

Backcountry Skiing DOA with Steglich!

Nice day yesterday. Ryan (best man in our wedding)and I got up the hill early because it was snowing. We promptly spent about 3.5 hours eating breakfast burritos and drinking coffee in the lodge. I haven't seen Ryan in a while so we had lots of catching up to do!

Had one good run in the resort and then left into the backcountry to ski the chute DOA which goes back into Blackcomb. Not the greatest visibility heading up but I know the way very well. We broke out into the sun up top. And we did video this time!

How not to "ski" the backcountry!

The first skin up

We hit the backcountry again today, heading on a longer route around the back side of a few mountains that involved ski downs and skin ups, and then climbing up over a ridge and back into the resort on a run called "Poop Chutes".    It took us about 5 hours - in part because we didn't take the more traditional steeper or side-sloped routes to get there because I (Jodi) don't really like things like that,  and in part because....   well, let the photos tell the story:

Climbing up thru the notch

After a fall.   This is the actual scene right after one of my falls today:  both ski  noses buried straight in.   Hard crusty stuff on top of the snow makes turning hard,  and... um,  I'm not sure what happened after that....

Pretty view from the top of the Poop Chutes. Sunny up top but the village was down under those clouds all day.

How not to ski:   the ski run was quite steep, and really icy from what we later heard was 100km/h (60 mph) winds last night that turned the top layer crusty and icy.    After several falls and being too afraid to even try any more turns (ya know, your skis have to aim downhill to turn, and with the crust I just felt like I couldn't get them to turn to slow down again),  I did some "butt-sliding" down about 1000 vertical ft of the ski run, at times using my ski pole to dig into the snow as a brake to slow down.    This was definitely not the plan,  but got me down and was actually sort of fun.   Thank you to Chris who took my skis on his pack (again!).   Needless to say I probably won't be trying this run again

Butting down a hill takes quite a bit more time than skiing, so it was starting to get a little late by the time we were skiing back home through the resort.    We actually could see ok and we were on the really easy "green" beginner hill only a few minutes from the bottom, but a nice resort guy on a snowmobile offered a ride and I took it! 

This definately was not one of my prettiest days of skiing,  but I will say that the mountains are beautiful and the skinning (sort of like cross country skiing) was nice, the sun was out....  Tomorrow:  Jodi's taking a day off, and Chris and Ryan go do what they do - "not-butt-sliding" down some nice ski runs!    

Good Days in the Backcountry

Ryan (Chris's friend from college) must be good luck, because he brought some nice sunny days with him!    The last two days we've done some longer routes in the backcountry.      Yesterday was Corona,   which included two good sized skins uphill,  one of which you can see our route in the far background of this pic:  we crossed over the ridge to ski down the side to the left of the ridge just before the last big notch in the background:

There were a few areas where skis had to come off and we climbed up snow steps.   Jodi usually doesn't like the steep areas,  but  it was ok, and super-nice Chris carried my skis a few times so my hands would be free to grab the snow in front of me.    And, the ski down Corona was steeper and a bit icier than we'd hoped, but overall wasn't too bad.    Jodi had to do the 1,2,3 countdown to convince herself to aim skis downhill to start a turn;  and a few times had to restart the countdown after not quite taking the plunge.   Of course rock-star skiers Ryan and Chris had nice ski lines, but we didn't have the cameras out then, so those pics will have to come from one of the next trips.   Overall a good day!

2nd Backcountry Day with Jodi

Today Jodi and I did the same backcountry walk we did about a week ago. It was sunny but a hair windy and chilly. We had a very nice walk, got the camera out, and were able to "make some magic"!

Here's a photo of my frozen face and some goggle scenery:

Check Jodi out skiing powder in the Blackcomb backcountry:

 

Here she is making a bit more aggressive powder turn:

When we got home and I looked at this shot on my computer, it reminded me of the famous shot of Dick Durrance (an early pioneer of ski racing and resort management, including Aspen resort) from the late 40s. You look and tell me if Jodi wasn't channeling this guy!

Raisin Gatorade

At our wedding, Chris promised to "find new tasty foods for me to eat", because, well, I like tasty and new foods.

Today while we were driving around on some errands, we stopped for gas and Chris came out of the store with a proud smile on his face.

"I found a new Gatorade flavor for you!"

The flavor:   Grape-Raisin.

Raisin, eh?     What's next - prune flavored Gatorade?


Not really. Raisin = grape.

French, Genius.   (again)

Chris hike and ski with old buddy!

Got to hike around the Blackcomb backcountry with my old buddy Chad today. What a pleasure. He is such a swell guy for a bigtime sponsored skiier. Chad spent the last few days shooting a commercial for Panasonic, and different still photo stuff for Columbia outerwear.

He and I had a nice ski photography partnership when I lived here in 1998. Today was our first day shooting together with my new camera.

People ask why I like Whistler so much.... well, no snow now for 4 days or so, and look at the stuff we can ski with about an hour total of hiking-- not to mention the cool spots and beautiful scenery you see along the way!

Here's Chad--- his sponsor Bern helmets will like this because you can read their logo really well in the full size picture.

His sponsor Rossignol skis will like this one!

I don't have any sponsors (obviously) but I can tell you I'm thoroughly enjoying this turn!

Very satisfying way to ring in the new year. Happy New Year, everyone!