Well I survived skiing day one, and I only slid down half the mountain! Haha, kidding, kinda. I do have a massive welt and bruise on my leg from falling, sliding backwards and landing on the camera in my pocket. Our day started with falling snow. I woke up around 7 to a steady snowfall outside, it was so peaceful and beautiful. I watched it snow for awhile and when Mark got up we tested out the in-room hot tub, watched the snow fall and Canada dominate at hockey. Mark made breakfast of bacon and eggs in our kitchen and we geared up for skiing. After picking up our skis we jumped on the Whistler Gondola and rode it to the first stop. This area was marked on the trail map as a good place for beginners to start. After I literally slid down the first part of the trail Mark gave on on teaching me on the "easy" way down and I decided I'd rather walk back up to where the gondola dropped us off. He skied down and talked to the snow school guys about finiding a good place to teach me to ski. Upon telling them he left me to hike back up the mountain the guy congratulated him on a "great Valentines Day move" - hah! They did tell him where the "learning area" was and after a short walk we found it. SO MUCH BETTER! It was flat enough that I could practice slowing down, turning, etc and not fall every 5 seconds. This area totally turned the day around, I was so frustrated with the entire idea of skiing before we did this. We rode the little snow escalator up a few times and practiced skiing back down before trying a real trail. After watching a guy wipe out in the learning area and get carted away by a medic during a lesson I felt much better about my abilities! We found an easy looking trail and took that before riding a chair lift up for a longer trail. I actually got on and off the chair lift without falling so that was pretty cool. I fell twice on the way down the trail but made it back to the gondola area! We did the first trail again before hoping on the gondola and riding alllll the waaayyy up to the top. Whistler is insanely huge. At the top we had a pretty cool view above the clouds, took some photos and jumped on the peak to peak gondola and rode to Blackcomb Mtn. This gondola is pretty badass, it takes you over the gorge between the mountains and has some pretty amazing views. We rode the gondola round trip and by that time everything was closing. Mark wanted to ski down the mountain so I rode the gondola down (so I wouldn't slow him down haha, or get stuck in a tree). We met up at the bottom and grabbed a snack and some coffee before heading back to the hotel. When we got back we changed out of our ski gear and went to the outdoor hot tub. We met some other people from the US and a couple girls from here and Finland. After a nice soak we headed up to change and get ready for our dinner reservation. For Christmas I gave Mark and gift certificate to Quattro, an Italian restaurant under our hotel and he made us a dinner reservation there. The food was AMAZING! They had a huge wine selection and a great local Pinot Noir. It was cozy and intimate with some really neat art on the walls. I ordered the lamb, which was fantastic. It was tender and so so good. It came with spinach and sweet and garlic potatoes. Mark had an Italian Flag of pasta with different sauces. We had tiramisu for desert and it was great too. All in all a pretty good day! We have two more days of skiing ahead and the mountain is supposed to get 20'' of snow this weekend!
First drop off
Visibility was pretty spotty today
The moving walkway
At the very top! Other than that rocky area in the distance this is as high as you go.
Gold medal contenders
Peak-to-Peak ride
Going back down
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