January 5, 2004: Whistler Day 3

Having basically gotten into the swing of things, day 3 started off much smoother. The wake-up sequence was similar, but some of the guys had picked up breakfast material from IGA the previous day, the rest of us grabbed McDonald's take out. I was pretty much set to hit the slopes - I already had my lift ticket via the Express Card, and my board was all set up. While the other guys went to get their stuff, I picked up a pair of thermal socks since I ended day 2 with numb toes. Everyone else was still pretty quick, since some guys already had their rental boards or lift tickets.

It was around 10:00 when we got up to the top. Lancer, Arislan, Asmodean, and myself were planning to take the Harmony Express lift that we missed out on the previous day. It was closed when we had arrived, forcing us to take a flat catwalk around the mountain. We planned to try it again this morning, but getting there required a short walk up the hill to the start of the GS run from the gondola station. Instead we opted to ride down green run to a nearby lift that would take us to GS run. The GS run would eventually take us to the Harmony Express.

Somehow, on that green run, the first run of the day, Lancer managed to fall badly. We thought he sprained his ankle and called the ski patrol, who arrived quite promptly, and quickly packaged him up in a sled and skied him down the mountain. When we found him at home at the end of the day, it turned out that he had actually fractured his ankle somehow.

We eventually made it to the Harmony express, and tried the backside of the mountain and across the Symphony Bowl, which actually turned out to be more work than expected, dealing with some flat areas of powder and long catwalks. Sometime around 13:30 we made it back up to the top lodge to find Sinyee and Averal for lunch. Unlike the Tahoe resorts, they served poutine up here, which seems to make a pretty good riding lunch. We didn't end up finding Relgar and Marilyn, although we were all supposed to meet up. Since lifts close at 15:00, we were rode a little more after lunch before calling it quits and riding to the bottom (which is a pretty decent ride in itself).

After some bumming back in the condo (and watching Kung Pao, which positively sucked, so I took a nice nap), Relgar and Marilyn cooked up frozen lasagna, corn, and scallopped spuds for dinner, washed down with hot chocolate (why hadn't anyone else thought of that)? The rest of the evening consisted mainly of poker and bumming around. Lancer was out pretty early after taking some Tylenol 3 for his leg.