Monday Feb 23 - 12:30pm - we departed on time on AC34 Sydney - Vancouver - front seats in business class thanks to LifeMiles. The crew was the B-team but all-in-all a fine flight - unfortunately due to headwinds we landed some 20 minutes late at 7:45am. We pretty well knew that any hope of catching the 8:30am bus to Whistler was a lost cause - only because AC is so slow at delivering the oversized baggage (i.e. our skis). So we had to wait around for nearly 2 hours for the next bus at 10:30am - if we hadn’t pre-paid our bus tickets we would have jumped a taxi.
We arrived at Glacier Lodge (right across the road from the Intrawest) around 1:30pm and by a stroke of good luck were able to check-in immediately. We dropped our bags and headed over to the Mallard Bar (at the Fairmont) for lunch - a shared prime rib sandwich.
It was an amazing sunny and warm day - 8C in the village - not a good omen for the ski conditions - we could see that the lower mountain had basically no snow.
After a lie down and showers we headed to the grocery store to buy stuff to see us over for 2 nights when we move to the Intrawest. Unfortunately when we booked the Intrawest some 11 months ago we were unable to secure the first 2 nights - clearly they have sold too many points to meet the peak ski-season demand.
We stayed home for a light dinner (soup and bread) and hit the sack early.
Tuesday Feb 24
I had a great night’s sleep unlike Dieter who did lots of tossing and turning. We started a bit slow but hit the slopes around 10:30am - it was a cloudy and very mild day (above 0C) but it cleared to sunny skies by mid-day.
Only the upper mountain was skiable - quite icy conditions which softened to spring conditions when the sun came out. But in all honestly - these were the worst conditions we have experienced ever since we started coming to Whistler some 15 years ago.
We had lunch at Christine's at 1:00pm - the manager and one waitress remembered us from previous years. The food was great as usual - some of our old favourites and some new items were on the menu. After lunch we called it a day and skied to mid-station and downloaded. Dieter’s hip was holding up but only just.
After showers we checked out the ski boutiques - surprisingly not much was on sale. We had dinner at one of our favourites - Umbertos.
Wednesday Feb 25
Moving day - we checked out of the Glacier Lodge at 10:00am sharp and moved our luggage across the road to the Intrawest. We then headed out skiing hoping that we would be able to check-in before the normal 4:00pm check-in time.
Contrary to the weather forecast - it was quite a bit colder than Tuesday with foggy conditions - it even started snowing on the upper mountain - it was -6C. Visibility was variable to poor but as planned we headed over on the Peak-to-Peak after a warm up run down to the Jersey Cream chair. Conditions on Whistler were worse than Blackcomb - we tried the peak t-bar then the Emerald - finally we went for lunch at mid-day even though we had reserved for 1:00pm at Steeps. We had a nice lunch then decided to call it a day - we went back to Blackcomb where it was now snowing quite heavily which, combined with the cloud cover, made it all quite unpleasant. We got to the Intrawest about 2:30pm to find our unit not yet ready which combined with an unpleasant check-in person made the whole experience very stressful. We finally checked-in around 3:00pm - Dieter took a rest while I unpacked then we went shopping at the IGA loading up for almost a week. I was too whacked to make much for dinner so we had sambos and hit the sack early.
Thursday Feb 26
Ah we both had a reasonable night’s sleep so we were in a pretty good frame of mind. It was still cloudy, but no snow. The following tells the story - forecast as of this afternoon:-
After brekkie, I was able to secure our Intrawest booking for next January when bookings opened at 9am - exactly 11 months in advance - 5 minutes later there were no 1-bedroom Lodge units on Jan 26 !!
We headed out skiing around 10:30am - the cloud cleared to sun for the first few runs - we stuck to Ross’s Gold as it was the run of the day and pretty good conditions all things considered. We stopped for lunch at 1:00pm at Christine's - excellent as usual. After that we took another run then downloaded for home.
As planned we stayed home for dinner - had pasta and salad.
Friday Feb 27
It was a cloudy and windy and cold day on the mountain (-6C but felt colder) - we had a run on Ross’ Gold then headed over to 7th Heaven where the top was "rough as guts" but the bottom was pretty good - the cold wind made the ride in the chair a bit of an ordeal. We headed back to the Rendezvous for another run on Jersey Cream then off to Christine’s for another excellent lunch. After lunch we skied to mid-station and down-loaded home.
We had a quiet evening at the condo with an excellent dinner of steak, baked potato, field mushrooms and green beans.
Saturday Feb 28
Ah - a bueatiful sunny day - we hit the slopes to find it not too busy for a peak Saturday (clearly due to the icy conditions). It was mild and we skied mainly on Ross’s Gold (the run of hte day) and Wishbone to Jersey Cream. Around 1:00p we headed back down to the village for lunch but then decided to have sandwiches at home as we were going out for dinner. We spent a lazy afternoon at home - checking out skiing in Japan for a 2016 stopover on our way home from Whistler.
We had dinner at the Wildflower at the Fairmount - which was a 10 out of 10.
Sunday March 1
A cloudy day - one run had a patch of sunshine. It was quite cold and the icy conditions continued. Dieter was feeling very tired all day - “a bad-leg day” so we quit early and went to the Mallard for lunch - excellent as usual. After lunch I went grocery shopping while Dieter took a rest - I stocked up to the tune of $100 thereby getting me the $10 IGA discount - I used $8 of the $10 to take a taxi back to the Intrawest. We stayed home for a quiet dinner - Cornish Game hen (aka a large spatchcock) - then some reading and off to bed.