12.04.2012 – 12.04.2012  9 °C

Got going early again this morning as I was due up the mountain by 9.45 for my lesson. Arrived at the bottom of the gondola with T&D (J is still laid up with his ankle) at probably about 9.25, so I thought I would have plenty of time to get up to my lesson…. I didn’t get to the top til 10am!! (the gondola ride takes a lot longer than you think, coupled with a small line up at the bottom…) So I was late for my class which meant that they had already taken off without me.

I stood around talking to another of the instructors (Akiko) and explained the issues that I had, had the other morning and the fact that now that I had hurt my R knee I no longer had any confidence with my skiing. We stood chatting for about 10min with her giving me some pointers as to what I could be doing wrong.

My group turned up and they already had four so Akiko and I joined this group to make two smaller groups. We started off and immediately I lost it, and started to stress. The other group continued on and Akiko took me alone to the bottom of the hill. We went back to some basics and I just worked on the basics for the first run. By the time I had gotten to the bottom of the hill I had gotten my parallel going and was smiling for the first time the whole week!

We took the lift back up to look for the group again and when they turned up it was agreed that I would continue with Akiko by myself and the other group would do their own thing.. So private lesson!! J The rest of the morning was up and down the same chair lift just focussing on improving my turns (which was all I wanted out of this lesson).. I think the main thing that made a difference was not looking at the ground but looking up and focussing on not using my upper body to shift my weight.

By the end of the lesson I was sore and tired but pretty chuffed that I had finally got myself going again after such a horror start. (Note to self.. always start off skiing with a lesson… much more preferable to going out and injuring oneself!)  Akiko asked me to join her for her lunch break (and knowing that D&T would be waiting inside I agreed). While stowing our skiis etc we ran across this guy who was wearing a purple suit.. it turned out that he was some uber-famous Japanese skier who was in town with a group of Japanese tourists… Akiko went nuts! she was so excited to meet such an awesome skier, to the point where I had to have my photo taken with this guy and his tour group! J You gotta love Japanese people and their need for photos!

Had a drink in the Round House and then said good bye to my instructor and headed back down the hill (skiing) to see J&M for lunch. The trip down the hill probably wasn’t as good as I had been skiing with Akiko (mainly because the legs were getting pretty tired) but still a vast improvement on the other day. We skied down to the mid way station of the Whistler gondola to catch the gondola back down to the base (we were already late for lunch).

Lunch was another eat out at our pub and restaurant at the base of the gondola (although not quite as good as the day previous) and at lunch we decided to forgo skiing for the afternoon (I had already decided to rest the knee and T was feeling pretty tired) so we instead agreed to go back up the mountain with M and take her across the Peak to Peak gondola for some site seeing and photo snapping and then a head to the tube park for some tube riding!

By the time we actually got our tickets for the gondolas it was well after 3pm (and the Peak to Peak stops at 4) so we probably only just snuck in with our trip. Our site seeing expedition was probably the best idea we could have as the sun was out for half of the trip and for the other half it was snowing!  Just an awesome way to spend our last afternoon on the mountain!

The tube park wasn’t all it was cracked up to be… For whatever reason, the park is built up above the mid station for the Blackcomb gondola, which means when you get off you have to climb up this hill to get to the park.. The snow is pretty slushy in this part of the world so it was pretty hard yakka walking up the hill in very soft snow.. We made it to the park to discover you have to walk up another hill to get to the magic carpet… why the carpet doesn’t start at the base of the run and take you all the way up is a total mystery to me and by this stage the calves and thighs were burning! Once you get on the carpet the tube is wider than the carpet so you have to pull the tube up the carpet!!!!! My god, after skiing all morning and then walking up this hill, with tube in tow, I will tell you that I was absolutely buggered!

The ride down the hill was pretty good but it was debatable whether it was worth the walk up the hill! We did one more run (as an ‘all in’ quad run) before we called it an afternoon and went hunting a cold beverage.

Dinner saw us all walk down to the bottom of the village to visit the Olympic rings and grab a bite to eat in the micro brewery, before we all turned in for a well deserved sleep! We certainly made the most of our last day here at Whistler!

Song of the Day– Abba, Dancing Queen

(Today’s blog song is dedicated to the waiter who was on the front desk at our lunch venue today, as he spent the whole time dancing away to the music that was playing in the pub!)