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Published: December 21st 2006
Nusalya
Arriving at the Nusalya Chalet Nusalya Chalet
Our digs for the next 3 nights was the
Nusalya Chalet...a 5 star B&B in Squamish, about the mid-point between Vancouver and Whistler/Blackcomb. It's the first time we've ever stayed at a B&B (well me and Lauren anyway...Jane's done it before) and it's kinda weird to me, but I could get used to it given time.
Skiing
Getting 5 people organised; out of bed, washed, dressed, breakfasted, packed, on the road, kitted up and on the slopes is turning out to be an ordeal. We started the day at about 7:50am and although it didn't feel like we messed around...by the time we made it to the top of the Whistler gondola for a day of skiing...it was already 12 MID DAY!!! Wayne did OK and managed to score a day lift pass for $40 from some students hanging around at the ticket office. I was a little dubious that they were trying to scam us, so I stumped up full whack for a day tickey ($77). Add to this get rental of about $36 and then Lauren's lift pass + gear...we're off to an expensive start.
Jane and Cathy got sightseeing passes and we all headed off
Nusalya - Entrance
Jane and Lauren out the front of Nusalya up the gondola. I offered to take Lauren on a few runs and teach her a bit. I expected to take her for about an hour and then leave her with Jane for some lunch at 1pm, I'd skip lunch to maximise what was left of my day and then come back past at 2pm and take her for some more runs when she was refreshed. Well...that was the PLAN. Unfortunately, that was all it was! The green runs at Whistler are on par with what we consider blue runs in Australia and she found the going quite tough and I had to tandem ski her down the steeper sections. She started off quite shaky but was gaining confidence towards the bottom...but...it took us TWO HOURS to get to the bottom!
On the chairlift on the way up, I discovered that the lifts close at 3:30pm!!!! This left me with only 1.5 hours left of freestyle time. So I dropped Lauren off and made tracks. I skiied hard and fast and got in a total of 4 runs in before I ran out of time and had to head back for the village. This is not such a bad
Eagles
Eagles eating fish down by the river thing as those 4 runs were enormous and would probably count for 20-25 equivalent runs back in Oz. You ski until you feel your legs wanting to explode and then you take a rest...do that 2-3 more times and you get to the bottom of a short chairlift.
Whistler is immense! This is the only ski resort where I have had to stop and pull out the resort "atlas" to figure out where the heck I am. I saw many people standing around perusing the trail map (which is actually called an "atlas"). I found the kids tree fort in the forest, skied a range of green, blue and black runs and I'm sure that all the runs are the same steepness and they change the grading of the run to indicate how wide the run is; green = wide, blue = decent width and black = narrow chute.
Day 2 - Woof Woof!
We decided to forego the snowmobiling at Whistler and do that over in the Rockies instead and spend the morning doing some walks and taking in some nature. It all started well enough, we found a whole group of Eagles down by the river
Bark Bark!
Funny council signage and saw some fresh bear tracks (probably black bear tracks - they're quite common here, but we've yet to see one). We also found our first "DOG" sign...where there is a human notice and a dog notice underneath it. I read that the person responsible for these signs works for the councils and they are real council signs that really work. They're so funny that people stop and take notice...and in our case, actually take photos of them.
Splish Splash
We then visited Alice Lake provincial park. It's a beautiful nature spot just north of Squamish on the road to Whistler. We started off with a walk around Stump Lake, there is a 4 lakes trail that takes in 6.5kms of trail and about 2 hours effort (without snow) and we estimated that with the deep snow cover we could double that time and it would feel 4 times the distance. So we just decided to do the Stump Lake Loop of 1.5km as a quick nature tour and then head off to Whistler.
All was going well...until...I just had to give the ice on the lake a bit of a foot. I was standing on a log
Splashdown
Lauren standing at the spot where I fell in the lake (before I fell in). which extended out into the lake and I got my balance and then gave the ice a kick. It didn't budge. I gave it a much bigger kick and I estimated that where I was kicking, the water under the ice would be about 10cm deep AT THE MOST.
WRONG! Boot went through the ice followed by the rest of me up to my waist into freezing cold water. It was one of those slow-mo falls that you expect to stop very soon but it just keeps unravelling much to your horror. Finally my foot hit bottom and it propelled me immediately back onto that log and back along the log and onto shore very much embarrassed and feeling quite the idiot. Fortunately, Jane had the digital camera...fortunately for me she didn't think to keep snapping photos of my stupidity when I fell in. Also...I was lucky that the iPAQ and mobile phone in my pockets escaped getting wet...probably by mere millimetres! I handed those to Jane, grabbed the car keys and ran back to the car in my waterproof hiking boots that did a fantastic job of keeping all that ice-cold water IN THE BOOTS and got
Lauren skiing down the Emerald Chair
Lauren's run down the emerald chair. It took 2 hours! stripped down to jocks and t-shirt and sat in front of the heater to keep warm.
Zip Trekking
After the walk, we were due to go Zip Trekking. The fact that I had soaked my ski-suit and waterlogged my only pair of winter footwear didn't help things along. We had to head back to base and drop off the sodden gear, get fresh gear and I only had a pair of sandals - not the best thing to walk around in snow in. I took this as an opportunity to get some fresh gear, so we headed to Whistler and I jumped out of the car and headed off for some shopping while the rest parked the car. I picked up a new glaringly red/orange ski jacket at a good price (compared to what we shell out in Oz!) and a new pair of Merritts insulated and waterproof walking shoes...so I was back in business again after a C$500 outlay (A$600)...nice to have a choice of skiwear now :-)
Next stop...Zip Trek.
We started off with our group and another 3 people from Seattle at about 2pm. We kitted up with harnesses and some basic instruction and
Tree Fort
Here is the kiddies tree fort at mid-mountain on Whistler a priming run on a small zip line in the village just to get our brain into gear for what was coming up. We then took one van from the village up to a transit point where we swapped into another van to take us even further up the mountain. This second van was fitted with chains...you're not allowed to drive around Whistler Village with chains and it's much more time-effective for them to use two different vans to get us up the mountain instead of fitting/removing chains on just a single van. Then we got off the second van and jumped into a "Kitty"...which is their term for a small Snow-Cat...a buggy with snow tracks (a la tank) which then took us up to the zip lines.
Lauren was ready and insisted on going first! No fear whatsoever. One by one we zipped off through the trees through the gently falling snow and fading light (it gets dark around 4pm at the moment). At each stage between zip lines, we were given information sessions about the natural environment, our impacts upon it and what is being done locally to minimize impact wherever possible. For example, they had strings
The view down Bear Paw
Looking down towards Whistler Village from the Bear Paw (black) run. of christmas lights all over the place, they claim they have 20,000 bulbs...all LED bulbs that consume less power than one normal globe, and even that power is generated from a hydro turbine they've installed in the river that flows down to the village.
After 4 zip lines, we headed off to the last "freestyle" zip line where we were encouraged to do crazy things like hang upside down and let go so that we were suspended upside down in mid-air with our arms and legs flailing about skimming across the valley at 60kmh.
We then had a quick stop in a hut for some nice hot chocolate in front of a roaring fire before jumping back into the Kitty and 2 van exchange system to get us back down to the village. We hung around for a while to see the pro-photos that were taken of us zip-lining...but the only photo that came out half-decent was Lauren (who went first of course) and the rest of the photos suffered from a lack of light...you could make out my bright new jacket clearly...but for the rest you could see a helmet, maybe a face...but struggle to see anything
The main drag
This was the confluence point where all the ski runs funnelled together towards Whistler Village from the upper mountain...as you can see, quite crowded else.
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Chooker
non-member comment
Rodg !
Aaay Ooop Chooker ..... you should have snapped pictures of the "ice breaking" incident !! We'd have all loved to see them !! Enjoy your "white christmas".