Beth Couldn't Understand Why Skiing had Become so Difficult

The sun came out yesterday for the first time since we have been here. Sadly there is also a festival on too so when we got to the gondola in the morning we had to queue... OK so in Europe this happens a lot but we haven't queued since we got here so we picked the shorter one and went up Blackcomb. The sun had come with a rise in temperature and the snow was more like slush even near the peak. After trying a few runs we decided to head over to Blackcomb glacier which has two entrances. One called Spanky's ladder which was beyond my skills and the other one which included carrying your skis along a ridge.... Mum don't look at the next photo...

I'm not sure the photo looks particularly scary but at the top of it there was just enough space for my foot, the wind was blowing a gale and there was a massive vertical drop. Once we got over, the slope looked like a vertical drop to me but after a while I got on with it. Having said that some poor kid had taken his skis off and was telling his mum he was going to walk down! Once we got to the bottom Tim then informed me there had been a mini avalanche right behind me just as I was trying to get to grips with the slope. He figured it was best not to tell me at the time.
Eventually we stopped for some lunch and lazed around in the sun for an hour or so before heading down to meet Henry Boddington. It turns out Henry (who i went to college with) is also cycling down the west coast with his fiance and has been in Whistler all season. We figured it would be cool to meet so we arranged to meet at Longhorn, a pub at the bottom of Whistler. In hindsight it felt like an episode of 'where's wally'. If only I had worn a stripy red jumper. There is free music every afternoon and the place was rammed. After a couple of beers we decided enough was enough. I couldn't take any more fancy dress 80s ski wear and I couldn't see Henry anywhere....

We headed off to a tapas bar where we decided to have a few drinks and think about how we are going to plan the next part of our trip. Tim started chatting to the waitress who turned out to be a physio from Belfast and after waiting maybe 10 minutes for our dessert she gave us another free glass of wine for having to wait so long! Needless to say we didn't get too far on the trip planning. Besides all i am worried about is having the fastest bike possible to leave Tim spluttering in my dust - pay back for his brilliant skiing prowess ;-)

Today we headed up to the peak of Whistler and onto peak to creek again which was a massive mistake. The snow was ice and after maybe 50m we lost all visibility. To make matters worse I was tired and went flying on a snow snake (where the powder gets blown across the ice - i think). My glasses went flying and acted like a couple of spades scooping up what loose snow there was! I think this was the worst white out (is this what it is called) I have been in. It didn't help that a few of the poles on the side had fallen over so I had no real idea half the time if i was still on the piste. When we came out the other side I decided I needed to go back to bed with a cup of hot cocoa. I couldn't believe the rest of the mountain was in blazing sun and we managed to find the one pocket without it.

No here I am sat in the internet cafe having finally managed to meet up with Henry. They set off tomorrow on their bike trip so hopefully we can keep up to date with their website to find out the best places to stay.

Ooh and I can't believe I almost forgot to say that we saw our first bears today. Two little cubs trying to climb trees near where all the kids learn to ski! Guess that isn't the best place for them to be..