Today was my 2nd time going up Whistler this season. As usual, went up with Angela, and Daryl joined up this time, so three of us. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to go or not last night still but since I got my board tuned up ($30, at Coast Mountain Sport, rip-off ??), I thought might as well go up and see how “good” the board would get.

Went up around 6:30 as usual, taking Angela’s car. We stopped by Mcdonald’s to grab some breakfast, but not sure if it’s because getting too stuffed or if it was that I didn’t get enough sleep, I was getting motion sickness in the car on the way there. I tried to sleep and tried to breath hard but it wouldn’t go away. Well I didn’t puke but it wasn’t too good of an experience. The sky was cloudy today mainly due to the flurry (there was like 2cm of snow accumulated overnight). Well you get fresh snow in return to a dull sky, I was okay with that. The slopes were obviously more powdered than last Saturday, and also my board was in reaaaally good condition, I was just sliding and sliding..! I gained a lot of speed due to that and consequencely I fell quite a bit but surprisingly I’ve almost never landed on my butt - I was able to get back up almost right away after I fell (or almost fell). This was quite tiring though actually, since it was pretty harsh on my thighs trying to stand back up, almost like doing stepmaster… Anyway, I was feeling courageous and I actually went into some tree areas where the track was super narrow but powdery. I hit a tree at one point (lol) but it wasn’t too serious or anything…it was actually quite a lot of fun! I will do more trees next time if I get a chance, have to do it in the beginning though since it takes a lot of effort crawling back up once you get stuck deep in the snow.

Went up Whistler today for snowboarding. Went up with Angela, her sister Kim and her sister’s husband Kelvin. Daryl was supposed to come but he was sick so he couldn’t. We got there real early around 8:30am, it was already pretty crowded. I bought an Edge Card online for $69 which was kind of like a discount card for Whistler…it includes a free lift ticket plus you get discount when you buy ticket next time. The weather condition was okay, not too sunny and very cold; luckily I brought my face mask with me so I was okay. It brightened up a bit later in the afternoon though. I think I’ve only been to Whistler once last year, plus I was really bad at boarding last year so today was pretty much my first trip there that I actually “learned” how to board “properly”.

We went up to the Blackcomb Mountain first, did a couple run, then met up with Kim and Kelvin. We then did a few more runs together and took the “Peak2Peak” gondola (new in 2008) which was a 10-minute ride that brought us from the peak of the Blackcomb Mountain to that of the Whistler Mountain. The ride was really cool, the cable car was large (I think it would fit 30+ people), and the ride was very stable and quiet - must be some pretty high tech kind of mechanical design.

We had lunch after we got across. The cafeteria was really huge (never been there before) and offered basically any kind of food that you could imagine - pasta, rice, salad, bread, cookies, sandwiches, soup….etc. and it was PACKED. We got our seats after about 10 minutes of searching.

The condition of the snow was pretty bad I’d say. It was okay near the top of the mountain, where you could still find a fair amount of soft/fluffy snow, but when we got to the lower part of the mountain it was hard packed. My snowboard wasn’t sharpened so it didn’t really have any traction against some of the “icy” areas and I fell down a couple times. Butt and the lower part of the hand hurt really bad as the ground was hard If it wasn’t that icy I would have fallen way less often…:(

It was a fun day though and money well spent. I was pretty exhausted at the end of the day (we did a super long run from the top of the mountain all the way to the bottom, with only 2 or 3 rests) as I pretty much maxed out my stamina since the other guys were really good and I had to make sure I wasn’t too slow or I would lose sight of them…

Went up to Cypress Mountain again yesterday from 3pm to 7pm, with Angela. It was a perfect day, lots of snow and not too cold and I didn’t even wear face mask and goggle. The view up there was amazing, I got to see some really neat lighting effect that I’ve never seen. The shadow casted by the sun were bright blue…I’ve never seen shadows that were in blue. The snow were in this bright orange color, really neat.

Anyway I bought a Skicard that costed $70…. I wasn’t planning on getting one but…the day ticket itself already costs $59 so …might as well. With the Skicard I save about 20% each time getting a lift ticket, so I just have to come once more to make up the price difference, not bad. We basically just kept on doing runs like non-stop, went for mostly the green runs since I still sucked (well I improved a lot actually). After a few runs we headed down for some fries/pop and then resumed. I think we did about 14 runs in total, it was really bright during the first 7-8 runs and then for the last couple runs the sky was entirely dark. I did a few blue (more advance) runs towards the end, and actually it was really fun as it wasn’t as steep as I thought it would be.

I was super exhausted after all that, in fact I’m still feeling a bit tired and sore after a day. Nevertheless I just want to go again ASAP…. oh by the way, my car got stuck in the snow near Angela’s place and I had to shovel it for a while before I could get it back onto the street…the snow was really bad I saw lots of cars gotten stuck… I just wish everything melts down ASAP…

Went to Cypress again today for snowboarding. Okay first of all I’m half dead right now due to the extreme tiredness (I can barely sit upright and my forearms are hurting a lot). WELL but I’m happy Davinder, Angela, Allison, and I went up today early in the morning (Allison went up first with her friends and then we met up around noon). The sky was SOOOOOOOOO nice today - unlimited visibility, moderate coldness, and 10cm of fresh powder snow I was shocked by the beautiful scenery I saw up on the mountain. I was able to see where all the runs are, was able to see every trees clearly and the image was so sharp. It got even prettier around noon when the sun shined on the trees. I should have brought my camera with me!

Anyway, Davinder was learning pretty quickly this time (even though he still fell down a lot and we had to sit around and wait for him from time to time). Angela and I were able to pick up some speed this time since I had FINALLY managed to do the toe-side brake. I was certainly still in learning mode but I was able to slowly carve left/right in a zig zag. While Davinder sticked to the green (beginner) runs for the whole time, I actually went down a couple different blue (more difficult) runs with Angela. These runs are certainly steeper but I found the snow to be much more powdery and soft. It was actually quite comfy to fall down on the puffy snow…lol. Allison was pretty good at it too, but then she was with her other friend most of the time. We had lunch at the usual crappy cafeteria, and I had a chicken burger and stole some of Davinder and Angela’s fries XD.

We did a couple more runs after the food. Since we stayed till pretty late tonight, before we left the sun was gone and Angela and I decided to try out one more run to get the feel of “night skiing”. It was pretty fun actually…well it’s a total different feel. It was a great day, I’m satisfied, and tired.

Went up to Mount Cypress with Angela today, Davinder was too much of a coward so he didn’t come (joking =P). I brought my own snowboard, boots, jacket and pants with me (that I spent couple hundred dollars last month on, so I better make practical use of them as much as I can) . We didn’t expect that it would be snowing that hard! I was saying that I wanted to drive my Smart car up to the mountain but looking at the condition I guess I better not even think about that until I install some nice winter tires Some cars even had to make their way back since they were sliding so much. We made it up effortlessly though.

There were more people than I’ve expected, in such severe condition. Well, at least it wasn’t as foggy as 2 weeks ago when I was on the Grouse mountain. We’ve decided to get a “ski card” so that we can save some $$$ next time we go up again. I had made up my mind to practice as much as possible on turning, so that I wouldn’t have to do that zig-zag kind of movement which always stress me out very quickly. After 5 runs we headed off for food. Longgg line up as expected, and crappy food as well. I got a “pork rib burger” with a really gross tasting energy drink…yuck (just thought that I actually was going to need some more energy). We actually did 10 runs today!! I’ve never done that many runs before, but halfway today I kind of got the hang of it so I was feeling less tiring and was able to do a couple more runs.

It was an awesome day! I actually got something out of it which is really all that I have looked for I’m feeling more confident than ever now… Hopefully I can do some night skiing sometimes this week after recovering from the tiredness!

“It’s snowing…holy!” As soon as I woke up and glanced thru the blinds, I saw this HUGE pile of snow…and it’s still snowing…pretty hard. I didn’t expect that it would snow yesterday, it’s totally…shocking! Shocking happy since I was going to Mt. Cypress with Angela and Davinder in like 2 hours!! Let it fall let it fall!

Davinder and I met up at Angela’s place, around 9am. Angela’s got a Subaru Forester (4WD) with winter tires on, so we felt that we were going to be….pretty safe lol. We got there quickly and it was PACKED. We had to walk so much from our parking spot to the place where they sell tickets. Huge line up too, and after about an hour wait we finally got onto the Gondola. The mountain was extremely foggy and snowing pretty hard, so we didn’t get to see much of the “scenery” during the gondola ride…but oh well, it was still fun as it was my first time. It was Davinder’s first time snowboarding (Angela is a pro, and I’ve done it couple times), he had to rent out everything including jacket, pants, boots, board…everything; and since it was snowing hard still, we were forced to buy these much overpriced goggles ($34 or something) ….:(

We had lunch at this burger place, and as expected we got some overpriced (and bad tasting, imo) burgers with some fries and pop. Well, at least gave us some energy to move onto the next few runs. Davinder got too tired from the falling/tipping-over-and-had-to-crawl-back-up-in-a-weird-position routine, so he didn’t go for the runs with us after the food. But anyway it was fun fun fun! (Fun to see how Davinder fell from the lift helplessly….etc) and it was certainly helpful on my leanings watching how Angela did her swift moves! We’ve decided to leave around 5pm since Angela had to go home dinner with family (for the Chinese “Winter Festival”) What a fun, memorable day! (lol Davinder)