Whistler 2009 - Part 1

I had to wait a few days before writing about Whistler. To be honest, it's because I've been a tad depressed to be back in Cali. Going to Whistler for only 4 days is kind of like taking a kid to Disneyland for a few hours, showing them all the rides and candy, and then telling them they have to leave and can't come back. However, this is not a blog about my depressed state, it is a blog about the fantastic time I had in Whistler. I think it might be impossible to do this in one post, so this is either going to be an epic-ly long post or become part 1 or 2. We got to Vancouver on Thursday night and drove straight up the Sea to Sky to Neil and Whitney's place. We took a quick pit stop at the Tim Horton's in Squamish, and arrived at around midnight. A quick chat with Neil while we made our "nest" on the floor and we were asleep.

Friday we woke up excited to ride. Neil had the day off, so after breakfast and finding some bike park passes and a bike for Neil, we all hit the park. This was my first time to ride the top of the mountain, so I think I was extra excited. Really, the awesomeness began on the Gondola. SO BEAUTIFUL. Every direction I looked it was gorgeous, snow capped mountains, beautiful forests, streams running below us... and it was FALL!! there we orange and red and yellow leaves mixed into the predominantly evergreen forest. Perfect.


And then it got better. We got on our bikes. Our first run was supposed to be a warm up run, and did start on a blue run... but we ended up jumping onto a black run a quarter of the way down, which was a challenge considering it was our first run of the day, but super fun none the less. I won't go through each of our runs in detail, but some highlights from the day were riding a crazy long skinny/bridge/log ride thing on In Deep, or fatcrobat, forget which trail that was on, discovering Freight train (our fave trail on the upper mountain), and realizing that I could now make the majority of the jumps on Crank It Up. Oh! and Poutine for lunch!! Friday was kind of a feeler day for me, I wanted to scope things out for the days to come and not go too crazy on my first day. We did however, do something like 5 runs from the top, so it was by no means an 'easy' day. Only injury of the day was me (of course), taking a seat a bit harder than I would have liked into a rather embarrassing body part.

Friday night, Neil and Whitney went into Vancouver for a Pearl Jam concert, and we had a quiet evening at their place. We had dinner at Carumba's... mmmm... delicious calamari... and bought some Keith's and Fudgee-os and Russell fell asleep on the floor by 8pm.

Phew this is long already and I haven't even gotten past Friday.

Saturday we got up in time to be in the park almost when it opened. A bit busier on the lifts on Saturday, but nothing terrible. Saturday was a really big day. Another not so good warm up run - goat's gully, double black, the hardest trail I've ever ridden - but after that, so much awesome riding. I can't even begin to describe...hmm... highlights... drop in clinic, Freight Train over and over, A-Line jumps and hitting the step-ups and rock lines and rollers that I hadn't done the day before. My hands and arms have started to become exhausted at this point, but we just can't stop riding!! Too much fun!! Poutine again for lunch, and delicious burgers and wings with Neil, Whitney and Jimmy at their place for dinner.


I think this is getting too long for a single post, I feel readers becoming bored with my self indulgence. I'll write about Sunday and Monday tomorrow. As a last note, here's a link to the Whistler bike park trail map http://www.whistlerbike.com/information/maps/index.htm. Friday and saturday we rode the following:

• Blue Velvet
• Freight Train
• No Duff
• Original Sin
• Goat's Gully
• In Deep
• No Joke
• Crank it up
• B-Line
• A-Line
• Drop in Clinic
• Too Tight
• Devil's club
• Heart of Darkness
• Dirt Merchant
• Side Track
• Fatcrobat
  

Phew I think that's it!! That's A LOT of trails!!