Whistler 2006

Whistler 2006 is over, and we had a great time. It was really, really nice to just go up there, hang out with a bunch of good old and new friends, ski, drink, and hang out.

Marshall really summed it up when she pointed out that she didn't really want to go back to Seattle since her friends up there weren't us. It's not that they aren't cool people, but they don't know her as well as we do and there's a different dynamic. It made perfect sense to me. It was definitely a lot of fun to just go and spend time with people I do not see enough of.

Either way, the skiing completely kicked ass. Friday was a little brutal, as it was windy as hell and we got three runs on the Peak Chair at Whistler before it was totally socked in and closed. After that, we sort of dinked around lower down the mountain and ate some lunch before heading back out to go fling ourselves around Big Red and some of the other lifts. The problem with not using a trail map is that I don't totally remember what lifts or trails we skied. Go me. Anyway, Indie Rocker and I bailed early and played in the hot tub and pool before meeting everyone else back at the GLC for apres. Which was fun. After that, we came home and we all went back to the hot tub and pool before showering and splitting up for dinner. Then it was on to drinks at the Dubh Linn Gate, which meant Irish Car Bombs, the official MHM drink of Whistler. Good times. I stumbled home with Mayday and Ninja, and we realized that we had forgotten to get a key, so we had to wake up Indie Rocker to let us in. That went over as well as can be imagined!

Saturday morning we woke up to 8 inches of fresh, so Marshall and I raced out to demo some skis that were wider than ours. We ended up with Apache Recons, which I liked and were good for conditions. We ended up running a little late to meet up with everyone and got ditched, which was actually OK since I think we had a better morning. She and I skied two laps on McConkey's before we saw anyone we knew. The best part about the second lap was watching four grown men wuss out and turn back after they looked over the lip as we arrived to hit the run again.

We got fresh tracks both times and then ran into the sisters, Indie Rocker, the snowboard girls and MJ. We dragged them all over to McConkey's and then decided to go hit something longer since McConkey's is great, but short. As we got to the top, one of the sisters came flying off the lift and shot down the run, yelling something about the Canuck being hurt. We were confused, so we didn't follow them. Instead, we took another run off the Peak Chair and all the way down to Big Red. It was a lot of fun, and then we went to lunch a little late. MJ had gotten there on time since his knee was bothering him, and the rest of the crew started to show up 45 minutes later. Turned out we had missed the Canuck's brother and brother's girlfriend hitting the same dropoff and sustaining some serious injury. So serious, in fact, that a helicopter took her down. Fortunately, we discovered that the end result wasn't as bad as it sounded at first, but it made for an exciting morning. After lunch, I headed back out with the snowboard chicks, a sister and Marshall.

Everyone survived the rest of the day, and we apres-ed at Citta, which was great fun since it was beautiful and sunny out. Since MJ's knee wasn't allowing much skiing, he scored us a table, which rocked. Marshall and I returned our skis and bonded with Diesel and Mayday when they finally arrived. I was quite happy to discover that Speedy had been such a help at the accident scene, so her patrol training is paying off!

We headed back for more hottubbing and playing in the pool before dinner at the Dubh Linn Gate. We sent back food for the invalids and then went dancing at the Savage Beagle, just as we had talked about. Afterwards, we went for gravy fries at Zog's and got to see the spectacle of the trip. Some Paris Hilton wannabe and her sidekick drunkenly staggered up to Zog's and started demanding food, despite not having any money. Paris went so far as to start grinding on the fryer and they both offered sexual favors in exchange for fries. Someone made a comment about herpes to Paris and she started cursing a blue streak and wheeled drunkenly off into the courtyard. We wished she'd been in heels, because she would have bitten it so hard. Stupid Uggs!

Sunday was spent cleaning the condos, packing the cars and lazily making our way over to Blackcomb. We all skied straight over to Spanky's Ladder to go do the bowl and the runout from hell. It was a lot of fun, but hard to see. We split up a little bit, but skied as much as we could before lunch. Indie Rocker and I were exhausted and headed down with MJ and Spokes, since Speedy and Ty Webb had begged Indie Rocker to let them take a few more runs.

We wandered around the Village, got some coffee and headed out for the long-ass drive home that involved 45 minutes at the border with the border guard asking when we were going to put car seats in the car. Um, yeah. We'll get right on that.

OK, now I'm tired. But I didn't forget you guys.

Quote of the Day: "Don't take those. Those are mine!" Our ski tech at the rental shop, claiming my skis.