So for those who don't facebook, or at least facebook either Bronwyn or myself, or don't communicate with people who do facebook us (you get the picture), Bron and I got engaged last week! It was our first day off together since Whistler had opened, and we had been skiing together for the day. Incidentally, the Monday was one of the coldest days on record at Whistler (-26C) with a highest recorded wind of 140km/hr, which equals a lot of wind-chill. Anyways, we were one of the last people to leave the mountain for the day, and had a gondola to ourselves. There was a beautiful view over Blackcomb Mountain and Whistler Village. On the way down, the gondola stopped at a really nice spot, near some cliffs. I've been carrying the ring around since leaving Perth (nerve-wrackingly uninsured) waiting for a moment that felt right - the combination of beautiful views, our first day on the mountain together at Whistler and the memorable cold meant the moment felt right. Bron was pre-occupied by the view and it took 10 seconds to realise that I was kneeling before her, an another 10 seconds to register what was going on. I don't lie when I say her first words were: "Are you serious?" followed by "Are you really serious?" and finally "yes, of course!" For those into such things, it is a white gold ring (Bron's not a big gold gold girl) with a single diamond. To celebrate, we booked a night at the Summit hotel and went to the Elements Bar for delicious tapas, champagne and cocktails. Super times.
Anyways, to the snow. Whistler opened about a week early on the 19th, with Blackcomb opening on the 25th. I had to work the first couple of days of the season, and the snow was pretty packed in by the time that I finally got to head in, although still good fun to ski, and even 3 days since decent snow I found little patches of fresh powder. I took the chance to learn how to jump on the board.
At the last minute, my boss offered my the opening day of Blackcomb off - I almost tripped over myself accepting her offer. I lined up early that morning to get an early lift up, and was one of the first 3 or 4 people to do the first run I tried. It was incredible, waist deep powder, but I hadn't ridden powder like that before, and I spent most of the run riding 20m, falling over, and spending a couple of minutes pulling myself out of deep powder and doing it over again. About half way down I worked out the technique, but was still focused more on what I was doing than where I was going. I found myself on a black run, and as I was riding down, saw a 1.5m creek right in front of me. Fortunately, I had enough speed to jump it and carry on, but a hairy (and enjoyable!) moment. The rest of the day was awesome (there was still heaps of fresh powder for my second run), although I did almost tear some ligaments in my knee when I discovered a big covered chunk of ice under the snow.
Whistler has had its 4th snowiest November on record, with 80% more snowfall than average. On Tuesday, there was about 30cm of snow overnight, and I had the best days riding I have ever had. There was heaps of powder about, and after a tree run to warm up (good call Elis...) before heading out to hit the fresh snow. We had some epic runs, with Bron completing her first black run, the Upper Dave Murray Downhill, which was also the run used for men's Downhill and Super-G at the Olympics. At 3pm, I was still making fresh tracks through some runs. Incredible day, slept like a baby.
Bron has been doing loads of skiing, she hasn't started working for the mountain yet, so has been spending time skiing, as well as doing some casual work for Outback Ecology, hitting the gym and practising yoga. Unfortunately, she has been sick for the last week or so, but has been doing a really good job improving her skiing, even trying some small jumps and some tougher runs. She looks super-sharp in her cute new skiing outfit too!
Following a good snow fall at House, we had a big snowball fight between a bunch of us the other day, and tried to make a snow man. Its a sociable environment at House.
And on to non-snow happenings. One of our housemates, Jo was pretty sick for a bit there, but is back on her feet again and learning to snowboard. She's mastering falling leaf at the moment, but she'll be pro soon. Our other housemate, Gramps (aka Chris) is working too much to ski as much he'd like at the moment. We had his birthday the other day - he was turning even older - the party was pretty delinquent; I had my first Jager shot in a game of flip cup at around 7pm. We saw the new Harry Potter film the other day, I found it strange. I hadn't seen the last film, so that didn't help, but I wasn't expecting either soft porn or Nick Cave. On happy news, our mates in Hilton, Danielle and Ahron, had their first son - howdy Gabriel! We're having a ball here, it really is incredible.
Cheers
