I, my brother and my two sons took a "mancation" to Whistler for three days of snowboarding. OK, my brother is a skier, but he's just not as evolved as us West Coasters ;-) We figured it would be in great shape after the Olympics and it was. If you've never been there, Whistler Blackcomb is the largest ski area in North America. The first picture in fact was taken from the top of Blackcomb Mountain and shows a small part of the bowls and trails on Whistler Mountain next door.
Second picture is taken from a gondola car on the Peak2Peak gondola which connects those two mountains. That gondola is an amazing piece of engineering. There are two towers at each end and then 1.9 miles of unsupported cable in between. It's supposedly the longest such gondola in the world. In the middle where the cable is lowest, you are 1400 feet high. And it only takes 11 minutes to get from one side to another. On the second day, Whistler was enveloped in a cloud, so we took the gondola over to Blackcomb in search of runs where you could see more than 15 feet in front of you.
Third day (when my brother had to fly back) we had a dream day of spring snowboarding - bright sunshine, soft snow, no lift lines, and temps in the low 40s. We just went until our legs gave out.
The second best part of Whistler is the village. You come there and never have to leave - bars, restaurants, hotels, movie theatres, shopping all on a pedestrian only area right at the bottom of the lifts. Had one great meal at Araxi. I've been to Whistler four times and this place just never disappoints. I wanted seafood and ordered salmon sashimi and tuna, but I got to try the venison and a stunning loin of lamb. The people who sat down next to us couldn't take their eyes off our food. We explained what everything was and made their ordering easier.
If only the place wasn't so expensive, we'd do it every year. The exchange rate isn't helping either. I've been there when a Canadian dollar was worth 70 cents US, but it's almost 1 to 1 now.
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