Friday, April 16, 2010

Long Way From a Baja Beach

Having spent 4 1/2 months in Baja during this past winter, often on sunny, warm beaches, our current trip is priming us for the next adventure to Alaska.  Monday our friends Nancy and Kelly called to invite us to join them for a 3-day weekend at their condo in Whistler, B.C., a ski-in/ski-out ,two bedroom unit just above Blackcomb Village. We rescheduled a couple activities we had planned, packed our gear, and took off Thursday for the drive to Seattle to pick up Kelly and Nancy, followed by 4 1/2 hours to Whistler. 

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This morning dawned with sunny, blue skies, contrary to the weather report we’d seen that suggested we’d be skiing in the rain.  Kelly and Nancy knew the temps were below freezing last night, so suggested we wait til 10am to begin skiing so the ice would have a chance to thaw and make the snow surface better for skiing.  That turned out to be great advice!  So we spent 5 hours riding chairs up the mountain and winding our way down gorgeous ski slopes with spectacular views of the Coast Range. 

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Nancy and Kelly are far better and faster skiers than we are, neither of us having ever taken a lesson in our 30+ years of skiing.  After a few hours of skiing together they made one incredibly diplomatic suggestion to each of us for improving our form, and we found it was actually easy to focus on making ONE technical change!  Cathryn can no longer easily find Bob on the slopes by scanning for his strandard “stance” – he has a completely different look as a result of this one suggestion! We are grateful, as the thought of taking a “real” lesson, in which we’d undoubtedly get 18 suggestions regarding things we should do differently, would certainly result in absolute failure. 

It was a beautiful day, the snow conditions were great (for Spring, anyway), and it was so warm we were shedding layers throughout the day – fabulous!  Nancy and Kelly are easy, fun travel companions and we are so happy to have made this trip.  Tomorrow:  another day on the slopes!

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