A Last Hurrah!

26 March - Up at the crack for my final opportunity to hit the ski slopes at Whistla. After stumbling around the house for a while I headed off to the Skytrain and upon arriving discovered that the skytrain didn’t actually start services for another two hours. Not a problem - called Marcus to let him know the Skytrain sitch and informed him that I would get a taxi. No problem, he was just about to hang up when he asked me if I actually had a number for a taxi. I did not. Whilst he was searching my phone battery died. There was still just enough juice to turn it on again, get the number and call the taxi but it never showed up. Finally managed to flag one down and before we knew it we were on the bus to whistler, our bellies filled with the noxious breakfast that only McDonalds can offer. Another courier, Chris, was with us. He's a pretty serious snowboarder and an even more serious pothead and he was puffing away on his pipe before we even left Vancouver. He whipped it out again on the gondola as we went up Blackcomb, again on the slopes as we came down. It also made an appearance on the Whistler gondola despite us having a couple of extra travellers sharing it with us (one of them a 70 year old guy who joined us at the halfway point of the gondola ride whose first reaction upon entering the stinking, smoky capsule was 'Oh, that's a very nice smell!). We did some pretty serious runs throughout the day and I had a couple of bails (some planned and some not planned - all seemed to result in snow penetrating all of the openings in my clothes) but no new injuries to report i'm glad. It's good to ski with an expert (even though Chris was on a board) as I always find myself going down runs a bit beyond me which are always moer satisfying afterwards. My skiin gis probably not at its peak as I’ve only been able to it on isolated days and I don't get the confidence that comes with consitant practice but it's still the best mountain i've ever gone down. We were debating whether to do a last run up Blackcomb but weren't sure whether we'd make the express bus back to Vancuver at half four - it was a last opportunity to ski (for a long time for me) so I convinced Marcus to go again and lo and behold we missed the bus. No real disaster but an hours wait plus an extra hour of travelling time in a bus that was reminescent of my Vietnamese transportation after hours of knee and back strain was not the most pleasant way to finish the day.