From the drive out to Whistler this morning. The entire Vancouver-Whistler drive is incredibly scenic and gorgeous if the weather is right, which it was today. The Sea To Sky highway runs from West Vancouver, where Ian’s house is, most of the way to Whistler. It juts over the water, rock faces reaching up to one aide, water stretching out to mountainous islands on the other, each vista seemingly more picturesque than the last.
The entire trip to Whistler takes about 70 minutes, which is almost regrettable on a beautiful day like today, but which would be an incredible benefit to living in Vancouver. It strikese as an incredibly urbane, sophisticated city (and not just by Canadian standards) but you can drive 30 minutes from downtown and be in untouched mountainous wilderness. Very agreeable. I still think I prefer the Bay Area, but this has moved way up my list in the 30ish hours since I arrived.
The skiing at Whistler was great—perhaps not worth the $120 that I spent on a lift ticket and equipment rental—but certainly some of the best terrain I’ve skied. We spent most of our afternoon on the back of Whistler Mountain at the Symphony Bowl. Conditions were perfect: warm, sunny, and several inches of fresh powder. There were large swaths of Symphony that were more or less untracked and it was far from crowded. It’s tough to imagine a better day of skiing.
