Free Fallin'

The weekend has come and gone and I have been a little lax about getting to my column. I needed the rest! A few weeks ago I went to the top of Blackcomb mountain to ski on the glacier. The snow was great and I had a good time so I tried to get back to that spot on the mountain. I went up the Glacier Express lift and silly me, who knew that there could be different places to ski on Blackcomb Glacier. When I got to the top of the chair lift I thought it looked pretty different and maybe I had skied on Whistler Glacier the last time. Once I had convinced myself that it was indeed Blackcomb Glacier I decided to try to go up the T-bar lift to see if that brought me to the same spot. At this time I noticed that somebody was fishboning their way from the slope up and onto the T-bar lift. He had probably just went up the T-bar and had just skied down. I'm thinking that was far more work than I wanted to do on my way down. Now the smart thing to have done right at that moment would be to turn around and ski down to a spot where there was a map but Laura wasn't with me so I just went up! Now I was in for a penny.

It has been years since I was on a T-bar but this one was one messed up ride. I remember being able to fit T-bars under my knee and riding comfortably all the way up any slope. The slope was so steep and the rope for the T-bar was so short that it got stuck up under my butt and I swear it was ready to pick me up so I could go for a swing. Now if I was smart I would have just let the T-bar slip under my arm like the guy in front of me but I was still wondering what part of the glacier I was on. I was thinking at this point that I should bail on the whole T-bar thing and just do the "ski of shame" off the side of the lift but you had to be a ski patroller to duck out to the right or left. I was now in for a pound! Now I got up to the top and thought this was a good view but it wasn't where I had skied before. I noticed that some of the skiers were making their way higher (by climbing) and some skied down to where I thought you had to fishbone your way back to the T-bar or just continue further down to a map. It must have been the altitude because a few minutes earlier I didn't want to fishbone my way up to a T-bar lift but now it was okay to climb an extra fifty feet, in my ski boots like a lemming on his last leap of faith. So I loaded my skis onto my shoulder and used my poles to steady my climb up into God knows what. I knew there was a chance of avalanche in this location because I read the sign but hey, now I was already "all in!" When I got three quarters of the way up I understood some of the troubles mountain climbers have. I had to unload my skis from my shoulder and rather than descend in a "walk of shame," I used my skis and poles as crutches to help me up the rest of the way, panting! Right about now I started hearing John Pinnette saying, "I payed my fifty bucks, they should carry my ass up there!" Now I'm at the top of this cliff and believe it or not I have to walk up another slight slope to get to a point where daredevils jump off cliffs to make their extreme skiing videos. Again, John Pinnette is in my head saying, "At no point was my butt touching slide! That was a free fall!" Obviously, I made it down but I will be carrying maps of Whistler/Blackcomb from here on in!

Talking about free falls, Joe, Jeff P (not my new best buddy Jeff, but a good guy nonetheless) and I went down to Squamish on Sunday so we could stock up on some stuff. Along the way we went hiking up some trails to Brandywine Falls and Shannon Falls. The views were just incredible. We also made our way to Brackendale to see the bald eagles and the eagles did not disappoint. It was hard to see them at first but we spotted a pair of them. Our last stop on the way home was very near our Athletes Village venue. We went past the military post I may or may not have talked about and I could not guesstimate how many trailers were housing all the armed forces that patrol the backcountry in the Whistler area. It must be nothing short of a battalion. (I don't know what a battalion is but I like the way it rolls off my tongue when I say it) The trailers are not like the regular ones you see at a construction site. They have the same length as your longer construction trailers, but the width of them approaches the width of a school portable. I didn't feel the need to go in and enquire where they got these trailers because we had one more place to visit.


I am going to say this right now. There is no way I am going to bungee jump off any freakin' bridge. I don't care how many bombs I get fed from Michele or Jeff or anyone. It was all I could do to walk on the floor of this see through bridge. I was trying to walk on the strongest part of the metal because with each step you could feel the metal give way. I took a video of the walk on the bridge and after looking at it, it still does not give you an appreciation of the height nor how flimsy the metal is you are walking on! I figure that if they cheap out on getting their customers to the point where they actually jump off a bridge, what's going to stop them from cheaping out on bungees, bungee anchors, weigh scales, trained staff smart enough to know when you're cheating on giving your real weight? I didn't see any bodies down there but Whistler does have bears and coyotes right! Is there a better way to get rid of your evidence?