The ride of the day was the Blakcomb Glacier Run; 4.7 miles long!! To get there, we rode the Blackcomb gondola, took a very long chair lift farther, then used the summit t-bar (neither of us had ever done that, ugh) to reach a point where we had to climb up about 50 ft by foot (carrying our boards) to reach the summit. It felt like we were on mars. The wind was howling, Bob had trouble breathing. Then standing at the top and looking down, it was nearly vertical. Scariest run of our lives! In the pictures, you can see the boards stuck in the snow. That’s right at the edge of a 1000 foot drop.

Later in the day, we went down to bring Lynn up the mountain for lunch. She didn’t care much for the cafeteria style food but loved the views. Together we took the Peak2Peak gondola between mountains. That’s an amazing feat of engineering. She went down by herself and Bob and Nathan stayed up for more runs.

I’m not sure how we could top this trip unless more people join us. Who’s in?

The post Whistler Day 4 first appeared on LeRoy Family Blog.

Later in the morning, we headed out for a wilderness adventure snowmobile tour. The ride lasted about four hours and was amazing. We started about 30 minutes from our hotel on the pacific side of the mountain range. Because they have more moisture, they had 25 ft of snow. It was staggering how deep it was.

They took us up the mountain through winding trails that are mostly machine groomed. The higher up we got, the heavier the snow came down. At the top is a small bowl shaped area were we could play with the snowmobiles in the deep stuff. We’d ride up one side, turn and race down. Half the hood was under the snow; it was hard to see at times. Several people didn’t follow directions on where to ride and they got stuck. You could hardly see the sled. It’s was so cool! I wish could have stayed longer.

The post Whistler Day 3 first appeared on LeRoy Family Blog.

Lynn enjoyed her day at the fitness center and spa. We all went to the pool and hot tub which was very nice. Bob is really drawn the Inukshuk’s everywhere. They are markers for fellow travelers and an Olympic mascot. You see the rock statues in many pictures.

The run of the day was our adventure to creekside of Whistler mountain. It was before 2:00 and we promised Lynn we’d be back by 3:00. Bob was sure we could get to the bottom of creekside and back to the village in time. The farther we skied down, creekside didn’t seem to get any closer. We were already past the crossover when we knew we were going to be late. We got down as fast as possible but were drained and sweating like crazy in 28 degree weather. The gondola ride back up to the crossover seemed to take forever. Got back to our room at 3:30. Oops!

We took a horse drawn sleigh ride and dinner at a country club across town. It was very nice with hot chocolate for the ride and fondue for dinner. The views were awesome.

The post Whistler Day 2 first appeared on LeRoy Family Blog.

The Whistler Hilton is very nice. After settling in, we went for a walk through the Village; its beautiful. Lots of shop and places to eat. Everything was fully decorated for Christmas. They had 14 feet of snow before we arrived. It looks like a Christmas card.

The next morning Nathan and Bob were up early for Snowboarding on Blackcomb mountain. It snowed 7 inches at night. The locals call it a “Powder Day”. The conditions were great. Everywhere we went we found excellent boarding. The mountain is so big it’s hard remember where you’ve been.

The run of the day was a two hour guided tour. Just by chance, we got into a free mountain tour and that really helped our bearings. We really liked the terrain parks (jumps and rails for tricks) and “glade” runs trough the trees. We learned that Whistler was designed by skiers choosing runs they liked best while Blackcomb was designed by computer; they digitized the mountain and then mapped the fall lines.

Mouse over the pictures for a short description. Click the image to see the full picture.

The post Whistler Day 1 first appeared on LeRoy Family Blog.

The weather is great. We had an awesome day yesterday. The snow is very deep.

The hotel is nice too. Lynn’s enjoying that.

The post Whistler first appeared on LeRoy Family Blog.