Clive and I went out around 9'ish for a boy's only day, the girls deciding to take in the Whistler shopping experience.
We decided to head to Whistler Mountain again to explore the areas we failed to see on Wednesday. After a warm up run or 2, we decided to ski Franz's Run because the 2 previous times we skied it was late in the day and it was a chopped up mess. Franz's Run is where they will hold the Womens Downhill races at the Olympics here in 2010. What a difference it makes to ski it on a nice groomed surface.
Back up the mountain we decided it was time to head to the Peak. We skied The Saddle, a popular run which starts in a shute 10 metres wide but opens up to a wide run straight down the face of the bowl, the entrance to the run is in the top left of this pic....
Another trip up the very steep Peak Chair....
....saw Clive and I at the very top of Whistler Mountain. After I took a photo of a happy couple in front of the 'Inukshuk', they reciprocated by taking a shot of Clive and I....
The inukshuk is the official emblem of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. It's origins come from the Canadian Arctic dwellers in the far frozen north of Canada who placed stones/rocks in the form of humans to act as markers/signposts in the vast frozen landscape.
From the Peak I was able to take these photos of the surrounding mountains and scenery....
We then headed down one of Whistler's signature runs, the Peak to Creek, which runs from the top of The Peak down to the Whistler Creekside base station. It is 5.5 kms long and pretty much straight down. It is split into 2 parts, Upper Peak to Creek which is more or less above the treeline and offers amazing views of the rugged mountainside whilst Lower Peak to Creek is carved thru trees. Signs at the top warned that Upper was groomed but Lower was not. There is a getout run from the start of Lower which takes you back across to Whistle proper if you decide you don't want to tackle the steep Lower section. Clive and I reached the junction halfway down but decided to push on down the ungroomed Lower Peak to Creek thinking that even ungroomed it couldn't be worse than some of the runs we have safely negotiated over the past fortnight.
In truth, it wasn't too bad, very very steep, but not particularly moguled at all. these photos show the lower section and the steepness....
Safely and fairly easily negotiated, we headed back up the Creekside Gondola and right back up to the Peak again, 3 lifts and 25 minutes later we reached the top, did another speedy run down The Saddle, headed up the Peak Chair again and decided to traverse over to the 'Symphony Amphitheatre' which contains the 2 bowls which we had so much fun in on Wednesday, the Harmony and Flute bowls.
After a few runs down both bowls, including fun runs thru the specially gladed area at the bottom of Symphony, we decided it being 2pm, we better head back for some lunch. We had lunch at a little cafe at the base of the Big Red Express before heading back out. At this stage the light had become a little worse, but there was still a few runs we wanted to try in the area. We more or less stayed in this area, sking runs off the Big Red Express and the Garbanzo Express for the rest of the afternoon. We took our last lift ride up the Big Red at 4:18pm. Not bad considering the lift closes at 4pm!!!!
Back down to Crabapple, snow not quite as good as yesterday but still a fun way home to the base, before loading the Blackcomb Gondola back up to ski back to the unit.
Dinner was in the village at The Spaghetti Factory, where we took the walk down the run outside our lodgings to Blackcomb Base and walked to Whistler Village, all up about 10-15 minutes.
Later....
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