A White Christmas

The busy period is certainly upon us! With most of the North America's on break, the expectation is to have around 25,000 people on the mountains over the next week. Work has changed from being sent home early, to being called in to deal with the crowds. While this does mean a little less time on the hill, it does wonders to covering the arrears I have with staff housing.

Christmas has also come and gone, and while it's the first I've had away from home for a while we still managed to eat too much, stay up too late and share much. I actually felt like I had 2 Christmas days, as on the 24th it was not only a fantastic ski morning but a Skype call home to share presents with the family, and a shared dinner at the flat after a few hours work made for a big day.

Christmas day itself was mostly spent at work, but another dinner was soon to be enjoyed. While I felt like the lone colony member invited to the British empire.. Amy, Phil, Ed and Lucy together with myself managed to put on quite a spread.

Would you believe that since I left Vancouver, I have not travelled more than a couple of km's in either direction! That finally changed last night with my first trip to the nearby town of Squamish. With 6 of us piled into Chris' Ford F150, we hit up the all important stops. Walmart, Save-On-Foods and Timmy Horton's! What I thought was just a coffee shop turned out to be a sandwich/doughnut/snack amazement. I'm told these are all over Canada.. just not in Whistler.

Bemused at the need for a photo...

To keep myself entertained in the evenings without spending too much money I have started working on my next edit. There has been so many good days that I will let the pictures and video do the talking. I even managed to get a morning in on one of the biggest snowfall of the season so far (30-40cm overnight).

Getting airborne..

I have called this "Midget's Meadow" on the grounds that no-one has told me otherwise yet!

And this is what pillow's look like from above!

Powder Turns!

Always safe to ride with friends in the trees

We have also been gifted some great blue sky days that have made for good hiking opportunities. Brandon and I managed to get up into Flute bowl the other day. For a 20-30 minute hike we were rewarded with a number of deep powder turns. It certainly would have been easier with a touring setup, but I am holding off until spring!

Not a bad view

Brandon on the cat track

I'm sure there is more to tell.. but my mind is still a little fuzzy from being rather sick the last few days. It managed to knock me around a bit, but I'm coming back around now.

Christmas is coming

Life in the village is certainly starting to get a bit more crowded. This weekend is the start of the Christmas holiday season and already it feels like the number of people doubled over night. This means two things. First, I am going to get a lot more work.. which means more income, that I kind of need due to the lack of early season work. Second, the slopes are going to get a lot busier.. so time already invested in finding the hidden spots should hopefully pay off! Can't do much about lift lines however.

 

 

If you've wondered where I have been the last couple of weeks, the biggest bit of news is that the alpine has finally opened here. I am once again in my comfort zone, and happy to be back on the steeps! The first day that peak chair opened I didn't stop riding until the lift closed.. then had dinner at 3:30pm, as there was no way I was waiting for lunch, and a much needed beer. I didn't take the camera with me that day (bad decision), but I did want to focus on my skiing and make sure I would be comfortable in the conditions here.

With my confidence up, I also managed to get in to the zone which I have been looking at ever since I first looked at a trail map for Whistler. It's called 'Spanky's Ladder', and if you ever get a chance to go up it, the description is apt. The climb is almost vertical at points, but thankfully short. This gets you access to some fantastic bowls and chutes on top of the Blackcomb Glacier

The trail map of Blackcomb Glacier

This week when the sun came out, I had two fantastic days up in this region with plenty of fresh tracks, fun snow, and air time. Some great footage was taken, but I have yet to put this together into an edit.. so for now the stills will tell the story.

Blackcomb Glacier (Main Entrance)

Awesome pow turns

 

Pretty quiet out here!

Gladed Tree's on a blue sky day

Discussing line choice at the top of Spanky's

Lower entrance to Diamond Bowl

Believe it or not, there's skis in there somewhere!

Hopefully the multitude of photos this update makes up for the lack of them earlier. If you want to see more just check out my Facebook page as I regularly put photos up.

Another highlight of this week is that I was lucky enough to take part in the 'Slide for Hunger' charity event. Although you may think this sounds skiing related, it's not! In fact it involves sliding down an icy tube at speeds up to 100km/h about an inch of the ground wearing nothing but a helmet on a small sled. It's called 'Skeleton' and if you watch the Winter Olympics (or the video below) you will see what i mean! I wasn't allowed to take the video camera with me, but I think the others reactions sum it up nicely.

Whistler Sliding Center - Skeleton for hunger from Aaron Tasker on Vimeo.

Some of you may have noticed that I track my days on the mountain using an application called 'Alpine Replay'. I've hit a number of milestones over the last couple of weeks. Over 1000km total distance travelled this season, a new top speed of 95.4km/h, and the top of the leaderboard worldwide for vertical drop for the season thus far!

Last night I got to see all the extended family on Mum's side for a while as it's her birthday today (Happy Canadian birthday mum!), and also opened my care package from home. Thankfully I am now well stocked with many Kiwi chocolates, cookies, candy, spices and Maggi cook in the pot! I'm trying my hardest to ration them all.. but it will be difficult.

The snow is falling thick again outside, and this storm could well bring us another 70cm+ over the next 5 days or so, and as the peak didn't open today it could mean a big pow day is set for tomorrow! I have the next 2 days off.. so here's hoping they will deliver. Until then, I hope you are all enjoying your Christmas build up, and are being good to each other!

Does it get much better than this?

Not much to write home about

The last 5 days has seen over 1m of snowfall on Whistler, and the word around town is that it was the best weekend of the season so far. Unfortunately for me I was once again working the weekend, so while I did miss the crowds, I also missed the snow. Sunday was of particular note, with 44cm in 24 hours.. I did managed to get on the slopes at 2pm for a few runs, however instead of finding fresh snow I could only find moguls, and got a pole to the face for my troubles. Oh well.. there's plenty left of the season yet!

I did have yesterday and today off work, and while there has been some good snowfall the freezing level has been quite high. This makes for some very wet and heavy work, and today my legs decided to give out. Hopefully some anti-inflammatory gel and a hot bath later will mean I can still ride later this week.

Unfortunately there hasn't been a lot else happening that is worthy of writing. As I am still only getting 20 hours of work a week, I am running on a very tight budget and curtailing any apres ski activities so that I can still afford to eat well enough. I did however splurge on Sunday to buy some Hokey Pokey ice-cream, to brighten up my mood. As expected, it's not as good as home (we truly are spoiled with meat and dairy), but it still tasted great after not having any for at least 5 weeks.

This week also marks the milestone of my first month in Canada. I certainly do feel settled in now, and am starting to build some routines. Waking up early still occurs, but as it gets dark here very early (4:15pm sunset), I have found myself eating and going to bed earlier. That may change as summer rolls around.

I hope to get out into town soon and get some photos for everyone of the Christmas lights that have been put up. It really does look fantastic. Keep an eye out for these soon! It was also great to Skype everyone back home as they helped Leela, Chris and John move 8 trailer loads of dirt in one day! What an awesome job. Thanks to Chelles from Photoworks photography for the images, and everyone for their hard work! For those of you who don't know, the plan is to eventually build a deck out front.

 

Well, that's it for another few days. Apologies there aren't many pictures in this update.. I haven't been too snap happy lately due to the poor weather. Talk to you all soon!