Dec
03
 
This weekend we drove up to Whistler and stayed at the Fairmont Chateau located in the upper village. Tash got a great deal on the rate so instead of paying $400 a night we ended up paying under $100. Aaron, Maria and young Ayden joined us as well and the plan was to make it a weekend of skiing since the slopes just opened and the mountain had plenty of snow dumped on it over the past week.
 
The hotel was very warm and cosy with the festive decorations out in force, however, for the high price that you would normally pay per night, I was expecting a very glamorous room with premium furniture on par with Burswood or Sheraton’s level of class. On the contrary, the room had a warm cottage feel, but nothing that special in my opinion to warrant a $400 per night rate other than the spacious area and mountainside views.
 
Saturday morning Aaron and I got a late start on the mountain, partly due to the sleeping in and also the heavy morning breakfast that we wolfed down! Once we got onto the slopes there was a slight flurry of snow and the mountain was just as I expected… at base it was -10 degrees Celsius and up there according to the thermometer it was -20 degrees Celsius! While we were skiing you couldn’t feel the cold that much, but when we stopped the blood flow to our fingers ceased and they started to hurt because of the cold and to the point where they would get numb after every run. Aaron’s goggles were fogging up so he tried the scuba diving method of defogging they by spitting into the lens and wiping it off… only problem is it FROZE instantly! The slopes were nice and powdery with the occasional ice patches but all in all a good first ski for the season… No real mishaps except for once stack where I twisted my knee a bit. My skis were adjusted for more aggressive carving so they didn’t clip off when I hit the snow.
 
The best part about the trip would have to be seeing how excited Ayden got with the notion that he would be able to play in the snow. In his excitement he ripped off his gloves to make some snowballs and a few minutes later he was balling his eyes out because he fingers hurt so much from the cold. Being the cute little curious kid that he is, he befriended many random people including a bunch of girls. He randomly walked up to them while they were taking photos and started to talk to them. Not long after he was hugging and kissing them and even stealing ornaments off the Christmas tree for them… what a smooth operator! I’m sure Aaron must’ve had some influence on him with that one! Equally excited to be in the snow was Tash… she was like a kid in a candy store. Tash absolutely loves anything to do with Christmas and seeing all the snow and decorations made her so excited. To give you an idea… Tash looks for her Christmas carol CD’s around September… so seeing Whistler village covered in snow with all the lights and trees decorated was her own little haven…
 
 
All in all it was a nice relaxing weekend… until the drive home… with all the beautiful snow a 2 hour drive home ended up being 10 hours… The road conditions were really bad because of the ice and snow so we couldn’t do more than 30km/hr. This wasn’t bad until we encountered heavy traffic because of everyone coming back from Whistler and then over 5 kilometres of gridlocked traffic because a semi trailer had jack knifed and blocked the only highway back to Vancouver! The Sea To Sky Highway had become one big parking lot and because there was no way to change your route everyone was forced to sit and wait over 6 hours for the semi trailer to be cleared away. People got so bored that they started to make snowmen on the highway, and some people got a little carried away with it adding certain anatomy appendages too explicit to mention. Once the traffic cleared as we drove along I would have counted over 30 snowmen… I guess people needed to do something to keep themselves sane during the wait…
 
 
So far on our North American based road trips we haven’t had too much luck when it comes to traffic. First was the 6 hour border wait coming back from Oregon and now the new record of over 10 hours for a 2 hour drive… Nevertheless, it was a truly beautiful winter wonderland..~*