Whistler 4/24/10

Each season I have a goal of hitting 100 days usually it takes the full season from October to June to collect the big 100th day on snow.  However this season I was able to get out on the snow more often, taking full use of ride breaks and managed to rack in my 100th day in Whistler.

Last night was the late fun party bender in Whistler, the drinks started after riding yesterday with evo’s Molly and Chris plus some of the TGR skiers Dash and Dylan.  It continued on through the night until I finally crashed at 4am and in typical snowboarder form, was up at 8am to pack, do breakfast and hit the slopes.

100th day, tired but ready for more!

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Carrie joined me for the gondola ride up the mountain, we wanted to check out the demo day up on Whistler Mountain that would be going on so we headed up for a late morning session.  On the gondola, we started talking to the two guys Matt and Brian about their boards and them being from Seattle.  Brian had read shayboarder.com so it was rad being in a gondola meeting them and having them know the site!

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I usually try to attend both of the demo days at Whistler in order to ride more of the canadian companies like Stepchild, Prior, Endeavor but this year I could only make one demo day which meant less boards for the day.

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I ended up on two boards, the Endeavor Color RC board and the Bataleon Riot.  I wanted to try the Stepchild Whales Cock but didn’t have time to before I needed to hit the road.

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Carrie getting on the Never Summer Infinity for the day

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When we first took laps the cloud coverage was really low but the new snow helped the mountain conditions improve a lot on the upper mountain.  We found some foggy runs but good snow to try the boards in, including a couple inches of powder in spots.

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We started out this morning at breakfast with Vancity Allie and a few other bloggers/photographers covering the Telus Festival and luckily we were able to meet up on the mountain for some turns before I took off.  Allie does an amazing blog, Vancity Allie that covers surfing, snowboarding, vancouver, food, hockey, twilight…the list goes on.  She takes amazing photos and lives a very fun exciting life.  I love checking in to see what she’s doing and her next moves, plus she’s just so much fun in person to hang out with.

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Allan and Allie

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As the afternoon arrived, the cloud lifted on the mountain giving a glimpse of what Blackcomb looked like for the day.  The Peak to Peak gondola was closed so it made getting across from Whistler to Blackcomb more difficult but still do-able.

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With less than 4 hours of sleep the night before and a 4-5 hour drive ahead of me, I headed off the mountain by 3pm to be able to get to Seattle for a good night’s sleep.  We rode down to the mid-mountain gondola stop and took the lower half of the mountain down on the gondola.  On the lower mountain below the snow level, it meant slushy wet riding and very very slow.

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On the last walk through the village, ran into Tj Schneider and Sean Tedore who were trying to convince me by 5am flight could be missed and that I could leave Whistler by midnight for it…but I was dedicated to getting home early today.  I have a dog that I miss, wet smelly clothes that need washed and still a 3 hour drive from the time I land in Colorado so getting home early sounded like a good option.  It was tough leaving Whistler though and even when I stopped in Bellingham to meet Dan for drinks I was still on the possibility of just turning around and heading back to the funland.  That’s the one sad part about Telus Festival & Whistler, it draws you in to a world of fun that you never want to leave.