31. mars 2010

On slope report :-)


Today, sun! Oh what lovely sights! Now we can see what we did yesterday :-) Here top of 7th Heaven lift, picture towards Blackcomb glacier.

Tuesday 30.3 - Powder heaven


Oh what a wonderful morning! I met this view when I got up at 7 this morning. Beautiful powdered trees and patches of blue sky. We got up and was queueing the Wizard lift at 8:15! This is a couple that refuses to miss out on the powder snow indeed :-) We were not alone! Quite a few people had waited a while before the lift opened to be sure to be the first ones doing the powder runs today.

The weather on top however was more snow, and the upper most lifts were again closed because of poor visibility and avalanche risk. The promise is to open the 7th Heaven lift around 11. But what a start of the day! The pists were LOVELY! None of them were groomed and we had plenty of powder snow to tire us out :-) Here I am enjoying the fantastic Blackcomb mountain. Isn't this just amazing!!! :-)


The 7th Heaven opens and we leave the restaurant in a hurry, even my newly bought cappucino is left out! The area on top of the 7th is too lovely to be described. Just has to be experienced. The last 48 hours we have got close to 70 cm of new snow, and WOW! We do several runs here in this just fantastic area. No wonder the name of the lift covering this area. This really is the 7th Heaven :-)

We have a nice late lunch in the Rendezvous restaurant and take a nice and easy tour down the pists. This has truly been an amazing day in the Canadian Rockies. Back at the hotel we relax and have a looong hot shower. The plan for the evening is finding a new pair of goggles to me. Need my favourite yellow lenses in this weather.

Today is what we came here for. Huge mountains, lots of powder and few people. WOW! :-)

-Happy Marianne-

30. mars 2010

The Wizard Lift


The lift just beside our hotel

On slope report :-)


Can you see anything? Neither can we! Weather changes from sun to no visibility in an instant. Do we complain? Nope :-)

Monday 29.3 - Huge amounts of snow!

Getting up early, about 6 o'clock in the morning... Still a bit jetlag, but "the right way" to get us up early for the lifts without any trouble. I has been snowing heavily. We jump on the Wizard lift at 9, ready to go! And what meets us on top of Solar Coaster Express? 35 cm of new snow. HURRAH!

This is just lovely! The top most lifts both in Whistler and Blackcomb mountains are closed because of wind, but that means nothing. We have about 1200 meters altitude to play with anyway, and with this new powder snow its definately more than enough! Here I am more or less covered in snow. Great fun!!! :-)


Found this lovely girl with a bunch of other smaller kids taking ski lessons. She just has to be an American... Now off for an early dinner. We had to give up after 4 hours playing in the new snow. Nearly no pists were groomed, so it was heavy work all the way. Got our muscles exercised today :-)

-Marianne-

28. mars 2010

Sunday 28.3 - Testing Blackcomb Mountain


Breakfast? :-) VERY nice chocolate shop! Think Ian will be a regular customer! Found this shop luckily after having had our omelette breakfast downtown. Just had to go in and try the apples. The Bunny versions were cute, but all the "homemade" chocolate tempted me more. Good girl and bought just one.. small..


Today we tried the Blackcomb mountain area. Our hotel is just in very short walking distance from the Wizard Express pist. The chairlifts were superb, very fast and effective. We had no queues all day. Not even the first one! Blackcomb Mountain was a great area! And very big! I don't think we will be able to try out all the runs at Blackcomb and Whistler Mountain before we leave. Much bigger than expected, and I expected it big!

Here Ian is trying out one of the runs from The Seventh Heaven chairlift. The weather is nice, despite of the grey weather down in the village. We had fantastic snow conditions, and the snowbase today is 320 cm!! We learnt not to trust the weather in the village. All of our preferred pists of today were above the grey weather :-) There were, however, dramatic weather changes within only 15 minutes, so you cannot be too sure...

This evening we have relaxed and done nothing, too exhausted and excited to "do" Whistler Village by night. What a great start!

-Marianne-

Ready for breakfast in Whistler

Our first and early morning and we are hunting for breakfast in Whistler Village. No breakfast at the lodge and we haven't bought groceries yet. A bit grey day but lots of snow and powder at the top. Shopping for some food, then off we go :-)
-Marianne-

Arrived in Vancouver Canada

Landed, after a loong 10 hours eventless flight from Amsterdam. Now a 3 hours busride to Whistler. A total travel time from our house to our hotel will be 23 hours. Groan... I'm tired... But NOT complaining :-)
-Marianne-

22. mars 2010

Garden work

Winter is finally over and we have had our first check of the garden after the winter. A depressing sight. We have had to cut down 4 trees which was destroyed by the heavy snow, a lot of branches of our flowering bushes are broken and we may have to cut down the pride of the garden, a 15 meters tall tree. Too many branches are gone here too... A big job this year to get the garden in shape. We started this weekend and hope for good weather the following week. It would be nice to have the big jobs done before Easter holiday.
-Marianne-

16. mars 2010

Phony wildlife photography!


Audubon Magazine raises an interesting question about phony wildlife photography presented in magazines, books, calendars, and posters which gives people a warped view of nature.Well worth a read!
FYI - this lionesse is definately not in captivity. I found her posing just beside the road in Chobe Nationalpark just 5 minutes from our campsite, relaxing after having feasted on a giraffe she and the rest of the pride killed during the night :-)

CHECK OUT: Audubon Magazine article HERE

Proof!

Spring is finally here! Found snowdrops in our garden in between the snowy patches. Good enough evidence for me! :-)

1. mars 2010

Another beautiful sunset


Just had to catch this lovely view of our church (again :-) Had a fantastic sunset this afternoon. Its March, -5 and still lots of snow in Stavanger!

-Marianne-

Winter holiday unfortunately over


Because of password trouble the "live from the mobile bush" blogging didnt work. Again! But who to blame? I dont know.. Anyway, we had a fantastic trip. The 35 cm new powder snow was fantastic and all our muscles are sore. Thats what I call a proper winter holiday :-)
-Marianne-