I joined 52 other people on a ski trip to Whistler in British Columbia, Canada (about 2 hours north of Vancouver). Though the majority of the people are in Austin, there were quite a few from San Antonio, one from San Angelo, TX, and one from Washington DC. Snow was great and plentiful which made for good skiing conditions. Temperatures were a bit colder than normal but that made hot chocolate and the outdoor hot tub at our condo complex even better. Whistler was the site of the 2010 winter Olympics and has trails along 2 mountains: Blackcomb and Whistler. Whistler Village, at the base of the mountains is a community hub with restaurants, shops, and a grocery store. Whistler Village is very well decorated - at night the place feels like Christmas with all the lights. Overall, the trip consisted of skiing during the day and enjoying community with the group through the hot tub, dinner, and the devotional/ice breaker session.
January 12
I arrived at Seattle around 9pm and spent the night at a Doubletree hotel a few minutes from the Seattle airport. One nice feature of Doubletree hotels: warm chocolate-chip cookies upon checking in.
January 13
Around 10:30am, we all met up at the Seattle airport and boarded a chartered tour bus for the drive to Whistler. Our driver, Zed, pointed out some key sites of downtown Seattle and also drove us through downtown Vancouver. Vancouver is also known as glass jungle given the number of buildings with mostly glass walls. After leaving Vancouver, we drove along the scenic highway 99 to the mountain and arrived at Aspens condos. These are nice condos with all the amenities to make you feel at home. Aspens has a hot tub and is right on the Blackcomb mountain for ski in/ski out convenience. After checking in and picking up our skis, I joined 9 other people for dinner at Black's Pub - they have some of the best hamburgers I've ever eaten.
January 14
1st ski day. I spent today doing the green trails on the Blackcomb mountain. At the end of each ski day I went into Aspens outdoor hot tub with other skiers to relax and unwind after a day of skiing. In the evening, we had dinner at China Bistro then a devotional/ice breaker session.
January 15
2nd ski day. It was sunny today and I started off by going up to 7th Heaven - I was actually above the clouds! Then I skied down some and took the peak-to-peak gondola to the Whistler mountain. After getting off the gondola at Roundhouse lodge, I skied down to the base and took the Whistler Village gondola back to the top. I then took the Peak-to-peak gondola back to Blackcomb mountain this time in one of the glass-bottom units. It was interesting to see the ground passing by, like riding in a helicopter. I ended the day skiing some trails on Blackcomb. In the evening, some of us did a sleigh ride through the mountain. It was like riding a horse carriage, only in the snowy trails. Halfway through the sleigh ride, we had hot chocolate at a furnace-heated hut.Dinner was at the Keg Steakhouse - great food although pricey even for resort standards.
January 16
3rd ski day. After 2 days of solid skiing, I took it easy today. I went with 2 of my roommates to the Whistler mountain and took the Whistler Village gondola to the top. We met up with 2 of our friends at Roundhouse and had lunch. Afterwords, we skied to the Olympic Chair trails and did a few runs there. I then skied down to Whistler base and took the Blackcomb Excalibur Gondola to Blackcomb and skied to Aspens. We had 2 dinner groups to Mongolian Grill - this Mongolian Grill differs from others in that you are charged by the pound instead of paying a flat rate.
January 17
4th ski day. I skied to the Whistler mountain base and took the Whistler Village Gondola up. I skied all the way down to the base. Took the Whistler Village Gondola up again and skied a different route down. Took the Whistler Village Gondola up a 3rd time and went to Roundhouse Lodge for lunch with other skiers. Then we went up the Peak Express lift to the very top of Whistler mountain and we saw Whistler statue. It was very windy up there! We skied a green trail to Roundhouse Lodge, then I skied down to Whistler base (that's 3 runs from Whistler peak to base!) and took the Blackcomb Excalibur Gondola to Blackcomb Mountain. I skied the blue trails to Aspens. Most of the group had a full course dinner at Old Spaghetti Factory - dinner was bread with Garlic butter, minestrone soup, seafood linguini, and spumoni ice cream.
January 18
We had an adventure getting home. It started with sub zero temperatures (Fahrenheit) which resulted in frozen locks to the bus's luggage compartment doors. It took some time to defrost the locks. Then, our flight out of Seattle to DFW was delayed nearly 2 hours due to snow, and that caused all of us to miss our connecting flights to Austin/San Antonio. It was my first time to be stranded at an airport overnight due to a delayed flight. But we were all rebooked on the first flights home the next day and we arrived safe and sound.
More pictures:
Mine
Peter's (the organizer)
