Whistler

Last weekend, we did another big trip to Whistler. The exact group of people going was up and down until the last minute, but eventually there were 13 of us - so many that we didn't fit in one condo, so Steph rented two next door to each other. A lot of us went up on the Friday evening after work, and a couple more people came down on the Saturday.

It has been a cold Spring, so there was a fair amount of snow on the mountains themselves. Unfortunately, Whistler Mountain had closed already for the season, but Blackcomb Mountain was still open. Saturday was the most beautiful weather - the first real day of Summer this year. People were skiing and snowboarding in T-shirts and such, and quite a few of us got a little bit of sunburn that day. The snow conditions were pretty good too.

I had originally intended to take a hiking trip to Joffre Lakes. However, for a couple of days leading up to the Friday I was feeling a bit weird, like I was coming down with some kind of sickness. In the end, I didn't arrange the trip because of that (and as it turned out I was fine and didn't get sick - oh well). Our rental car got a flat tyre too, as I discovered when I went down to the parking garage on Saturday morning - I was looking forward to having my own transport. I had to swap it for the lame little emergency spare. I was a bit iffy about driving somewhere until I knew that tyre was good, so I thought I'd do some walking in Lost Lake Park because I could get there easily on foot. The cross-country skiing was over and I wasn't able to get a map of the trails, and the idea of walking the trails with no-one else around and with no map didn't appeal to me, so I had to find an alternative. I ended up walking some of the Valley Trail, which is mostly a paved path for walkers and cyclists (although part of my route followed a few of the cross-country trails at Lost Lake where I was still walking on snow.) The weather was great, and I walked about 9km on Saturday altogether - very enjoyable.

Sunday was overcast, and rained later in the day. The snow conditions were worse that day because of the mild temperatures and the rain, but I think most people still enjoyed it. The spare tyre had held up fine overnight, so I had an idea to drive out to the Cheakamus River and walk the trail there (which we did with Steph's parents last Summer), but the tourist information guys told me it would be too wet and muddy and put me off. Instead, I walked some more of the Valley Trail in a different direction, and although the weather was nowhere near as good, I still enjoyed myself and clocked another 9km. Some of our friends went home on the Sunday afternoon and evening, because they couldn't get a day off work on Monday.

Monday was a lousy day anyway - cold and wet. Steph, Tim and Chris proved to be the hardcore of the bunch and did a couple of hours of skiing despite the conditions. I had walked pretty much everywhere I could, so I hung out in Whistler Village with a couple of other friends who didn't want to snowboard that day. We left soon after lunch because of the lousy weather, and made our way home slowly and carefully thanks to our little emergency tyre which was speed-limited to 80kph. It got us home without incident though. I had a somewhat unpleasant discovery when I dropped the rental car back though - apparently a flat tyre is considered as "damage" as far as they are concerned so they will probably charge me - what a rip-off.

It was a great weekend though, and I think everyone had a good time. I was a little limited with my walking options, but the hot-tub, great food, Rock Band, and excellent company more than made up for it. Oh yes, and I recommend the movie "The Fallen Ones" if you get a chance to catch it ;) I think the organizing of it all tired Steph out quite a lot, and she wasn't sure about doing something with so many people in future. Then everybody clubbed together and bought her a bottle of scotch as a thank-you prezzie, so I think she might have changed her mind :)

I have some photos, which I haven't sorted out yet. I'll be posting those up in the next few days.