I could not NOT ski yesterday morning, given that it was a powder day. I thought I would try and do something I have not done since before my accident and in over a decade, and try to get first lift. I thought I had done quite well by arriving at the parking lot at 7am, when the first gondola started at 8.30am. Obviously, there were many people with the same idea.

The line ahead of me. You can see the lines goes down and then starts snaking around and around

It was actually not trivial walking up to this point in the snow/slope for me. I did feel slightly self-conscious as I moved up the slope slowly.

The line behind me by the time I got to the snaking around part of the gondola line

I did not get first tracks, but the snow was still pillowy soft, and lots of it. Skiing in powder is definitely the hardest type of snow for me, because I have to keep such a light touch on the outriggers/hold them out of the snow, and really accentuate the up-down action with my leg. This was tough on my third ski day in a row.

It was difficult to capture how beautiful the mountains in the distance were in this light.

The 6.5 hour drive from Revelstoke to Whistler was very tiring because of slippery road conditions a lot of the way. There were two occasions where I was stopped because cars had to be pulled out of trouble.

The bluff around Salmon Arm made me think of Squamish. There seems to be a ton of great rock between Revelstoke and Salmon Arm.

As I drove along BC-99 in the arid rain shadow of the coastal mountains, I was reminded of the rain shadow between the Sierra Nevada mountains and Rocky Mountains in the U.S. A lot of the landscape reminded me of parts of Nevada and Utah. Actually, my main thought as I drove along BC-99 was, oh, the Canadians are just as good as the U.S. at leaving First Nations people with shitty land to live on :(

I arrived in Whistler safely and took a rest day on New Years Eve. I have mixed feelings about being in such a resort-y skiing destination. I loved Revelstoke because it had world-class terrain and conditions without all the apres and resort village shops, but I know Whistler-Blackcomb is bloody huge and will be great to ski at too. And it is nice to have amenities (although I do think one can live without a Lululemon store in the ski village).

The temperatures are uncharacteristically low for these mountains, and will continue to drop as a cold front moves through.