Bluebird Days, Outings to Vancouver & The Final Countdown

This time next week we will be jobless, homeless and no longer living in the Whistler bubble. We’ll be in Vancouver for a couple of nights before going to Vancouver Island then heading down the West Coast. Spring has arrived in Whistler and we’re loving the weather! The last few weeks in Whistler have been great, we’ve had a bit more snow, some awesome bluebird days and we’ve made a couple of trips to Vancouver for football and hockey games.

Going back a few weeks we had 35cm of snow overnight when the forecast only predicted about 5cm – always  nice surprise  Luckily we had already planned to get out early (6am!) for our last Fresh Tracks Breakfast of the season. Pow and a bluebird – what a day that was!

Snow Much Fun

The snow is back!!! I had faith it would return and it’s back with a vengeance. Whistler was having the worst season in about 20 years, even the BBC pointed out last week that some Scottish resorts have more snow than here in Whistler… but not anymore! In the last 7 days we’ve had over 140cm of snow fall and it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon.

Like the last time we had a lot of snow, my days off fell at the perfect time. For my first day off we had about 15cm of pow then the second we had 35cm! Like everyone else I got up for the first lift at 8.15 so there were big queues which weren’t moving due to waiting on avalanche clearance. Well worth the wait though, even the main groomed runs still had great snow on them and we found good stashes of powder. I had so much fun going down some of the bowls and tree runs. Boarding from 8.30-3 both days killed me off – definitely the most tired I’ve been. The snow hasn’t stopped since then and I now have two days off again to enjoy even better powder!

3 Months into Whistler Life

Can’t believe it’s been 3 months since we left our jobs, flat and life in the UK to fly out to Vancouver for the winter season. Time is flying by and I can’t even remember what back home was like (exaggerating now, it hasn’t been that long). It only feels like weeks ago we were last minute planning everything and writing a blog ‘3 Months to Go’. Whistler life seems very normal to me now – waking up at ridiculous a.m on both work days and snowboarding days, drinking Kokanee, a Canadian beer and tedious work. I found out this week that I’ve already scanned over 12,000 people this season whilst validating and I’ve probably said ‘Hey, how you doing?’ (in a non-Joey way, people just don’t understand ‘you alright?! so that’s easier) to almost all of them…. that’s a lot of people!

So what’s new?! We still haven’t had snow for two and a half weeks, since my last post when we had 70cm in a couple of days. We are due a whole 8cm in the next few days, which we usually wouldn’t get excited about but every little bit of snow helps at the minute. It’s been sooo hot this week, it was 13 degrees at the top of the mountain a couple of days ago. Literally like spring skiing, not that I’ve ever skied in spring, but that’s how I assume it will be! Enjoyed not having having to wear 10 layers whilst boarding and having a beer outside at the top of the mountain, but I will be relieved when it cools down again and we get some much needed snow. A few recent pics:

Snow Gods, Fresh Powder & Whistler Fame…

The snow (proper snow) has finally arrived in Whistler. After a slow start to the season for snowfall, the last week saw over 90cm of snow fall! We were forecasted to receive 20cm on Friday night, which for the season we are having would have been great, instead we got 49 whole cm’s overnight with the snow still falling heavily on throughout Saturday. Luckily I had the weekend off, which is a rare occasion in Whistler as weekends are the busiest time for my work, to do a Women’s Snowboard Camp here.

I was like a very excitable 5 year old at Christmas to go out and play in the fresh powder (for once!). Even better that I was on a 2 day training camp so it was the perfect opportunity to learn how to snowboard in proper snow :-). The Arc’teryx womens camp was good fun and think I’ve finally managed to get there with snowboarding! The good snow conditions made it much easier for me to turn down a lot steeper runs than I have been doing. I did my first tree run, first black run and we even hit the park at the end of the day on Sunday… haven’t quite mastered jumping yet! Although I did get the tiniest bit of air on a ‘jump’ yesterday and I didn’t fall – that’s progress right there 🙂

Good day to have lift line priority!

Fresh pow in the trees

Our First Hockey Game, Settling into Whistler Life & It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Hello! It’s been a busy few weeks in Whistler. We’re now just over 5 weeks into Whistler life but it feels like we’ve been here so much longer. Time goes so quick here.

Last week we went to our first hockey game, woo! Although it wasn’t to see the Vancouver Canucks (the team we’ve been following since we got here), but the Vancouver Giants, who are in the league below the National Hockey League here. As part of one of the perks of working for the Whistler Blackcomb mountain you can join Club Shred which gives you discounted tickets. So for $20 we got transport to Vancouver, tickets to the game and a $10 food voucher… which was an absolute bargain! We were three rows from the front at the side so had a great view, although it seemed to close a few time when the players barged against the glass I really thought it was going to smash right in front of us!

It was obviously very different to football (sorry, soccer) back home and our beloved Bradford City, but it certainly didn’t disappoint. Within the first few minutes there was a big punch up between two players, seemingly over nothing, but that’s the whole point of the sport! It was just a little hard to keep up with and I lost where the puck was quite a lot. The Giants won 3-2 after scoring a late goal. We will definitely be going again, it’s probably the best $20 we’ve spent since arriving in Whistler. But will still be venturing to watch the Canucks at some point too, once we have a few more spare pennies  cents.

We had to buy some merchandise!

Don’t usually see signs like this at city!

Pretty close (just before a fight!)

Opening Weekend At Whistler Blackcomb 2013

Whistler Blackcomb opened for the season on Saturday, two weeks earlier than expected. Luckily I wasn’t scheduled to work on Saturday so I could go snowboarding for the first time in two years woo (Kyle wasn’t so lucky and had to work). So exciting to hear opening was sooner than we had all expected, although I wasn’t quite as keen to get up there as the people who had queued 24 hours to make sure they were first up the mountain.

I wasn’t expecting too much of the conditions as had heard it was pretty icy and not that much snow up at the top, plus only a couple of lifts and runs were open…how wrong I was! There was quite a bit of snow overnight and the sun was shining, what could be better than powder and a bluebird day for the opening day of the season?!

The conditions were great… my snowboarding not so good! After two years of not getting on a board and only having done a week anyway it was safe to say I was a little rusty. Nevertheless it was so good to be on the mountain, despite all the falls and many bruises! Roll on the rest of the season 🙂

I had to work on Sunday and had my first shift as a Ticket Validator at Creekside Gondola (where most of the locals live) so no snowboarding for me. A pretty easy job and it was quiet for most of the day, apart from a few keen people queuing from 7.30 to hit the pow. It snowed pretty much the whole day so was pretty jealous of all the people I was letting up the mountain, better get used to it I guess!

Whistler To-Do List

One of the things I’m looking forward to about live and working in Whistler is living like a local and a tourist at the same time. We’ll get to know all the cool places the locals go (if locals actually exist, heard it’s mainly Aussies), how to avoid lift queues in a morning (hopefully!), learn which runs have the best powder stashes and get discounted food & drinks! But we’ll also have time to do all the touristy type things. Here’s my Whistler to-do list:

• Achieve 75 days snowboarding
• Zip lining & bungee jumping
• Bob sleighing at the Whistler Sliding Centre
• Snow mobiling
• Heli-boarding (or at least cat-boarding)
• Master t-bar drag lifts
• Attempt the student lifestyle again  (just swapping the studying with working)
• Learn to do jumps and tricks on my board
• Do a double black run (possible double black but not getting carried away)
• Get a google tan
• Do fresh tracks a few times (get on the first gondola up the mountain and have a big buffet breakfast)
• Go to the coca-cola tube park
• Back country boarding / tree runs
• Make lots of videos with my GoPro
• Go to the fire and ice show
• Work and play hard!
• Have an awesome time and make the most of every minute

Not to do list

• Get injured
• Not have fun
• Take enough photos / videos

5 Months to Go

I probably shouldn’t be starting a countdown til we go to Canada already, but now we’re in June it means it’s now just less than 5 months! It’s not actually that far away and it’s literally all I’m thinking about. As I said in my last post, we’ve signed up The Working Holiday Club to sort our jobs before we go, and I had my pre-screen interview by them last week. Basically, they just needed to check that I meet the criteria and find out what job I wanted to go for and they have to agree too before we go for an interview with Whistler Blackcomb in London in July.

I’d decided I didn’t want to do bar or retail work as I’m leaving a job I love in Marketing to do this, so I don’t want to completely lose 6-ish months of experience in the industry. A job as a Ski & Snowboard Sales Host seemed to fit the bill and The Working Holiday Club thought I’d be good for that job (he described it as one of the only ‘grown up’ jobs you can do on the mountain) so that’s the job I’m going to be going for. The job sounds pretty good, though I’m not actually too sure what it entails but it’s an office job on the mountain where I’ll be working 4 10 hour shifts a week, so have 3 days off a week – perfect!

The Story So Far

Hello! Welcome to Our North America Travel Adventure 🙂

First off we is me (Laura) and my fiance Kyle who are soon to be moving to Canada for an adventure that is new to us both.

We have always enjoyed a holiday or two and going to new places, but we’ve always craved going away for a little longer. The backpacking travelling thing had never really appealed to us and there are different places that appeal to us both, so planning a trip would be a bit of a nightmare! So, we quickly scraped the idea of travelling. We had always talked about doing a ski season, but neither of us really wanted to do one in Europe and be a chalet couple and work stupidly long hours. So, what was the other alternative? You guessed it…. Canada!

We’d talked about doing a ski season in Canada a long time ago, but decided against it with Kyle being in a stable job and me deciding I wanted to get a grown up job straight after uni. However, an offer of a career break for Kyle and me thinking why the hell not – we decided to go for it!