Day 4 - the Downhill

Yesterday was a beautiful and crisp winter morning and because it was my day off I slept in until 5:30 am (ha). I was meeting some good friends from Portland Oregon and we were going to ski for the day. After standing in line for my ski pass and finding a place to store my bag we were finally going up the hill at 9:30. The gondola was very busy so we took the chair which only goes up to the mid-point of the mountain. As we transferred to the second chair we saw several skiers in racing suits and realized it was the Men's Downhillers who were racing at 10:30. There was one Italian monster who was 6'5" and 230 lbs. We decided to ski down to the Downhill course to see if we could get a good vantage point. We found an amazing spot towards the end of the upper section of the course which allowed us to see them coming out of the starting gate and then through the first turns and rollers including the first big jump. The atmosphere was electric and we were soon joined by several hundred people. There was a Swiss contingent, Canadian group, Americans, Austrians and even a few Vikings from Norway ...complete with horns!
The temp was perfect, there was nice sunshine and the course was hard and fast. I had called my son Marc and girlfriend Janet who I knew would both be watching the race and they were sending me updates on my BlackBerry so that we knew how each skier finished and who was leading ...again thanks Janet and Marc ...my 200 new friends really appreciated the updates!
After the race we decided to get back to skiing. We did a few runs at Whistler, but the lift lines were quite long so we decided to take the new Peak to Peak Gondola over to Blackcomb. It was an amazing ride and the views were spectacular.
I hadn't skied with the Millars for 7 or 8 years and it was great to ski with the boys who are now 21 and 17. They are both incredible skiers and great kids ...kudos to Dave and Karen for good parenting. Ben is in 4th year at UBC and both coaches and skis on the varsity ski team. He did one mogul run, where he looked like Alex Bilodeau ...it made my knees sore just watching.
We were back in the village at 3:30 and the village was packed with people. We couldn't even get into the Longhorn for an apres ski beer :( for those of you who have never been to Whistler, at the end of the day there are several outdoor bars to enjoy a beer even if it is only 2C outside. It's a truly Canadian thing!
I'm back to work for Day 5 and on the 5am bus again. Not so nice today ...rainy in Squamish, but the next 5 days are supposed to be clear.
Stay tuned for my next update tomorrow.

P.S. Ben did you meet up last night with the Hungarian Downhiller that you met on the chair?

sent from my BlackBerry device
Best regards,

Greg
M 416-347-1545