Whistler 2001: Back To Canada, Eh?
The date was February 4, 2000 and the Rice Ski Group was glowing in the aftermath of a successful ski adventure in Telluride. Thoughts turned to next year's trip, and gradually it began taking shape. Jeff volunteered to organize the trip, and Whistler, Canada was set as the tentative destination. Immediately after this decision was made, Mark T Kinzer had this strange urge to buy his plane ticket. "I can't have this loose end hanging over my head for a whole year!" thought Mark. But gradually reason began to take over and Mark T decided that it would be better to play it safe and wait for the destination to be finalized. Mark thought to himself, "Every time I get the urge to buy that plane ticket, I'll devote that energy to adding pop up help menus to my accounting party spreadsheet."
True to his word Jeff did organize the 2001 ski trip, and he finalized the lodging details quite early. In late August he sent out an email announcing that Whistler was indeed the destination for the 2001 ski trip, and the dates would be January 27th to February 3rd. Upon reading this email, Mark T's first thoughts were, "Oh well, I guess Adam is going to make us eat at a barbecue restaurant again this year." But then a more sobering thought washed over him. "The ski trip is less than 5 months away, and I don't have a plane ticket!" Mark quickly rectified the situation, sent out the first "flight info" email, and the Whistler trip was off to a roaring start.
It was the Saturday at the start of the ski trip, and the Rice Ski Group began descending on Whistler. This year's trip included 13 full weekers: Jeff, Marci, Steve, Bob, Sharon, Jay, Danny, Stacy, Phil, Dave, Adam, June and Mark. Rounding out the trip was Larry as the lone half-weeker, and Jeff's friends Tina and Elise (henceforth referred to as Thelma and Louise), who only stayed for one day.
Jeff, Marci, Thelma, and Louise drove up to Whistler earlier than the rest to receive the keys to the houses. Jeff and Marci had already been in Canada for a few days and had already weathered a back country trip with some friends, and the torching of a car. As Tom from Alpine Accommodations showed Jeff the inside of house #8, Jeff couldn't hide his disappointment when he saw the 32 inch Sony flat screen TV. "It'll be really hard to keep some of those couch potatoes from congealing in front of that TV," thought Jeff. But Jeff's spirits quickly lifted when he saw house #11, and it's little 19 inch TV in the living room. Jeff thought to himself, "No one will want to watch this tiny TV. This is the house for me!" Little did he know that a 19 inch TV was actually a big screen compared to Phil's TV at home.
The 2 houses were very similar and had many excellent features including an airlock room to keep the cold out when skiers came in, hardwood floors, heated stone floors in the kitchen and bathrooms, a hot tub, and a 2 car garage. This was actually the first time house #11 had been rented to outsiders, as was evident by the price stickers on the bottom of the brand new pots, which turned out to be a fire hazard. During the week, the group would establish a protocol for leaving an extra set of house keys in the garage (the garage codes were obvious once you knew the pattern).
Gradually the rest of the group arrived and went about renting equipment, getting groceries, and deciding on dinner plans. While Dan and Dave made the first of many skigroup trips to the AGI supermarket, Phil, Stacy, and Mark were put in charge of buying pizza for the group from Boston Pizza. Stacy and Mark determined that 3 large deep dish pizzas should be enough for everyone, and recommended this to Phil. Phil did some quick mental arithmetic, applied the ("Phil's appetite" = 2 * "Stacy's appetite" + 1) formula and decided that they should buy 7 large deep dish pizzas. Phil overshot by just a bit, but at least there was left over pizza for the entire week.
After everyone was stuffed with pizza, and flourless brownies for dessert (made by either Thelma or Louise), the only thing left was room jack. As the only couples present, Danny & Stacy and Jeff & Marci were given exemptions, and rewarded with the master bedrooms in each house. Of course Danny & Stacy were in #8 with the big TV, while Jeff & Marci were in #11. Bob with the high card ended up in the king size bed in #11. Adam, despite drawing a 4 of spades which was the low card, ended up with a half week single in #11, with Larry as his roommate for part of the week. Rounding out #11 was Mark T who also had a single. The 3 downstairs bedrooms of #8 were filled by roommate pairs June & Sharon, Dave & Steve, and Phil & Jay.
While Thelma and Louse were engaging in some daring nighttime skiing with the snowcats, Danny, Stacy, and Dave were doing something very thoughtful for their buddy Steve who they hadn't seen in almost a year. Knowing that Steve is a big cole slaw fan, Danny saved Stacy's sealed cole slaw cup from the plane flight, and gave it to Dave to put on Steve's pillow in lieu of a chocolate mint that you might find at finer hotels. When he saw this, Steve chuckled a bit, and put the cup of slaw on the dresser. Later on Dave came down and was appalled by this spectacle. Not only had Steve left the slaw uneaten, but he didn't even put it in the refrigerator. Dave hastily put the slaw in the refrigerator, and told Danny about how Steve had dissed the slaw. Danny couldn't help but think, "Maybe Steve just pretends to like slaw, but really doesn't."
The 2 houses were ski in, ski out, with access to the Lower Franz trail on Blackcomb Mountain. Unfortunately this trail was a blue trail for intermediate skiers, so some people skied out while others drove to Whistler Village. The whole Whistler/Blackcomb resort was a huge place. One lift ticket lets you ski everywhere, but Whistler and Blackcomb were more like two separate mountains, connected by Gondolas at Whistler Village.
On Sunday Jeff and Larry skied with Thelma and Louise, and went all the way to the glacier. Bob, Danny, Steve, and Dave skied together, but stayed on the Blackcomb side of the mountain, not wanting to venture out too far the first day. Just before lunchtime, Bob got out of control near some trees, and hit the top of his arm against a tree while trying to stop himself. Back at the house, Dave, Steve, and Danny waited on Bob hand and foot, feeling guilty that they had skied on ahead of him, before he had his mishap, and worrying that he might have broken his arm. Luckily it turned out that Bob's arm wasn't broken, but had a giant bruise. Dave, Steve, and Danny couldn't help but wonder if the bruise warranted all the attention they had heaped on Bob earlier.
At 3:30 pm, most of the ski group gathered in house #8 for a Superbowl party. This game featured the Baltimore Ravens agains the New York Giants. The Ravens controlled the game and won pretty easily. But the outcome was briefly in doubt when the Giants had a kickoff return for a touchdown in the 3rd quarter. But on the next play the Ravens did the exact same thing, and maintained control. Back to back kickoff returns for TD's. Wow! One of the funny Superbowl commercials featured an alien going back to his home planet and saying "Whassup?" just like the guys drinking Buds. There was also a spirited half time show with Arrowsmith, N Sync, Brittney Spears, and others.
After the Superbowl, the much of the gang ordered Indian food which was pretty darned good, while others consumed leftover pizza.
After dinner, Dave, Danny, Steve, Larry, and Adam revived the Ski Trip Illuminati tradition, by sitting down for a game. It's not clear how long the game lasted, because during the game Stacy tried to fix the stopped clock in the dining room. The pendulum fell off and time was literally flying. During the course of the Illuminati game, Steve made Dave lose a turn, and Dave got mad at Steve. Later we learned that Dave would have made an ill fated attack on Dan that turn, and losing the turn worked out to this advantage. The following turn, Dave launched a privileged attack and won the game. The Illuminati game also featured a clash between Larry and Adam, when Adam tried to control the IRS. Larry ended up winning the battle, and Adam turned his attention to taking down Larry for the rest of the game. It was reminiscent of a freshman year Risk game when Larry attacked Adam early on, and Adam spent the rest of the game suicide attacking Larry.
The gang woke up Monday morning hoping for some sunny weather. But the trend of snow flurries and not much sun continued. This caused flat light conditions and poor visibility on certain parts of the mountain. But still they skied on. However, this particular day wasn't friendly to snowboarder Adam. Adam and Larry started out together, but Adam started feeling dizzy and seeing stars, most likely from too much beer the night before. They say that 1 beer in the mountains is like 2 beers at sea level. They decided that Adam should stay put, and Larry would ski down and send help. Adam ended up waiting almost an hour for the help, because the first guy made a wrong turn. But eventually help arrived, in the form of a skier pulling a toboggan. Adam was successfully tobogganed down the mountain, and the dude towing him got quite a workout.
Jeff duplicated his glacier trip from the day before, making another glacier run with Marci, Dave, Steve, Danny, and Bob. A glacier run involves skiing over to the Whistler Mountain, then taking lifts up to a point where you can ski down the back side of the mountain, then come around to the front again. The downside of making a glacier run is that you must ride a T-bar to get there. After successfully braving this T-bar, the group found that the glacier run wasn't opened yet due to the snow storm . While they skied in this area waiting for it to open, they came across another T-bar called the Horstman which led up to Cloud Nine. There was a sign at the bottom which said "Experts Only". But since there were a number of blue runs at the top, they were left to conclude that the sign meant "Expert T-bar Rider's Only".
The second time around the glacier run was open. After a grueling 10 minute hike from the top of the T-bar to the start of the run, they were off. Because the glacier run goes along the back side of the mountain, it is 6.2 miles to the nearest lift, and about 9 miles down to the base. The gang went all the way to the base, which ended up being about an hour and a half of skiing. Of course they paused along the way to take a "My tongue is stuck to the glacier" photo.
Back at the house, Phil's back was sore from all the exercise, and he thought the best therapy was to have a person walk on his back while he lied on the floor. Sharon, Danny, Stacy, and Steve all tried this, but Sharon gave the best "walking back massage". Phil said "I'd pay $1000 for a mechanical Sharon", to which Sharon replied, "I think I'm priceless."
For dinner that night, the ski group went out to the Spaghetti Factory in Whistler Village. This is a Canadian version of the Old Spaghetti Warehouse. On the way out, the group noticed a young drunk guy at the karaoke bar adjacent to the restaurant trying to sing "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond. But a better title for his song would be "Give Me Free Beer".
That evening Stacy & June went with Larry to pick up some snowshoes to prepare for a snowshoeing trek the next day. Visibility wasn't great in front of the car, so Stacy & June asked "Are you sure your headlights are on?" Larry sarcastically replied "Yes, would you like me to turn them off". Stacy & June realized that it was improper to insult Larry's manhood with such a question.
Before bedtime, the game of choice was Taboo in house #8. After the game Phil started a tradition that would last all week of sleeping on the couch, as not to disturb Jay with any snoring.
On Tuesday most of the group took a break from skiing/boarding and went on a snowshoeing expedition led by Larry. Only Mark, Phil, and Adam stayed behind to spend some quality time with the mountain. Jeff and Marci joined in and cross country skied with the shoers. The spot they chose for snowshoeing seemed an awful lot like a road covered with snow. But for those who felt the desire for deep powder, there was a hill to the side with quite a bit of snow. After getting about half an hour in, the snowshoeing group decided to turn back and try another site that might offer a more natural setting.
After quite a number of U-turns, the 3-car caravan made it to the second spot, that had a waterfall that you could shoe up to. Larry's estimate was that the falls were only 15 minutes in, but he tempered this with an estimate of 100% inaccuracy. But this second estimate was only +/- 75%. The snow wasn't terribly deep, and many in the group ended up taking their snowshoes off during the hike. Dave used his snowshoes as a breastplate and became Xena, snowshoe princess. Just before the falls there was a bridge over a stream. Steve and Dave made giant snowballs, hoisted them over their heads, and hurled them into the water. As he hurled his into the water, Steve exclaimed, "I am Canadian!", borrowing a line that Bob had heard on a TV show.
Back at the houses later that afternoon Larry said his goodbyes and headed back to Seattle. Steve and June were turning on the dishwasher after a late lunch, but couldn't find any dishwasher detergent. June told Steve that she used some of the green soapy liquid on the previous load, and it seemed to work fine. Never one to play it safe, Steve decided that a double dose would get this load of dishes twice as clean. It didn't do much for the dishes, but the floors ended up a little cleaner after the dishwasher overflowed.
The game of choice that afternoon was The Great Dalmutti. After a little bit of struggling, Steve finally became the Great Dalmutti. After being dealt 2 jokers, he surprised everyone by invoking the 2 joker rule and causing a revolution, where everyone flips positions, and causing him to end up as the Greater Peon (the lowest position). Who knows what Steve was thinking (or whether he was thinking), but in his own words, he had "Shocked the world!" There may not have been a direct cause and effect relationship, but they never played Dalmutti again after that.
For dinner that evening, the gang split up into two groups. One group ordered Indian food from the same place as Sunday night. The other group went out to Hoz's Brewpub.
It was 6:59 AM Wednesday morning, and Dave's eyes were wide open. He & Steve had gotten into the habit of watching Star Trek every morning at 7 AM. They had even developed a routine of previewing the episode on the small TV in their room, before going upstairs to watch it on the big TV. Once again they were disappointed in the episode, but not disappointed enough to watch something else.
As Stacy, Adam, and Mark were going up the Whistler Village gondola that morning, they were joined by a stranger. As soon as the doors closed, he asked them if they minded if he smoked some pot. Adam was about to say "Only if you have enough to share", when Stacy said that she'd prefer if he didn't because the smoke bothered her. As the gondola made it's way up the mountain, the stranger explained that he was an investment banker from California, and that he was nervous about today's expected interest rate cut. The pot helped him to relax. Stacy gave in and told him it was ok if he smoked near the window, and was thinking to herself, "Hmmm... maybe June could use some pot on the slopes to help her relax."
On the mountain, visibility was kind of low. There were many spots where clouds were effectively covering the mountain. Since the term "F---ing Whiteout" had already been copyrighted during the Mammoth Ski Trip, these conditions were dubbed "Freaking Whiteout".
Before dinner that evening, Dave and Phil turned their attention to hooking up the DVD player on Phil's laptop computer to the big TV so that they could watch some of Dave's DVD's. They successfully got the video output of the DVD player hooked up using Dan's RCA jacks that he always travels with. But they needed a special cable for the audio, so Phil, Dave, Danny, and Steve set off for Home Hardware to look for the cable. The clerk informed them that he didn't have the cable, and that they would have to go all the way to the Radio Shack in Squamish (a 45 minute drive) to get it. While they pondered whether to make the trek to Squamish, they noticed a TV repair shop about 100 yards away from the hardware store, so they gave it a try. Dave walked in, asked about the cable, and was immediately handed it by the guy behind the counter. As the guy went to ring up the sale, he noticed the others in the car high fiving over the find, and decided that he could get away with charging these Bozos twice the normal price. Phil speculated that the proprietors of Home Hardware had some kind of feud with the TV repair shop, and that's why he didn't tell us about it.
The dinner plan for that evening involved homemade lasagna made by Jay and his trusty lasagna pan. He started out by boiling a giant 5 gallon pot of water. But as this was heating up, Stacy noticed that there was no hot water for her bath. She asked if anyone was washing dishes or clothes using hot water, but no one was. Thinking quickly Danny quickly grabbed the 5 gallon pot of water from the stove, and poured it into the tub to avoid incurring Stacy's wrath. A new pot of water was put back on the stove, and everyone was happy.
While waiting for the lasagna to cook, Bob was in a good mood, because Transmeta's stock had made a nice move that day. He offered Dan five dollars to finish drinking the quarter bottle of screw top wine that remained from the first night. Never one to turn down five bucks, Dan took his jacket buddy up on the offer, downed the wine, and collected the cash. After a short one hour nap to recover from the wine, Dan was back downstairs just in time for the lasagna feast. Marci washed down her dinner with quite a few bowls of ice cream. After dinner that evening, the crew took advantage of the newly set up laptop DVD player to watch "Spinal Tap" on the big TV.
While much of the group skied on Thursday, Danny, Dave, Stacy, and June took the day off and drove down to Squamish to see some eagles. There is a stretch called Eagle Run where eagles naturally hangout. They stay on one side of the stream, while people watch them from the other side. There were quite a number of eagles visible, and a few were even in flight. After they got back from the eagle trip, they mistook Jay's work logbook for his guestbook and signed it.
Jay and Sharon decided to try snowboarding, and took a lesson. Despite Sharon's getting hit by another snowboarding newbie during the lesson, they had a good time and continued boarding for the rest of the week.
Thursday was June's birthday, and she picked a Mexican restaurant for dinner. Everyone else was thinking, "How are we going to get this past Adam?". But Adam approved and Mexican food it was.
The gaming this evening consisted of a Guillotine game which was started before dinner, but never finished. After dinner the laptop DVD player served up "The Matrix" for the group to watch on TV. After this some people played some Bleeding Sherwood. The key thing to remember in Bleeding Sherwood is not to blow your wad too early.
Friday was the last day of skiing/boarding on the mountain. Danny switched over to snowboarding and joined June & Stacy on some of the slopes near Whistler village. Steve, Dave, and Bob who were skiing together came in for a late lunch in house #8. After lunch Dave & Steve decided to go out for 1 last run. Bob said to wait up, because he was going too. Going to house #11 to take a nap.
Dinner that evening was at a Japanese restaurant called Teppon Village, in celebration of Adam's upcoming birthday. This was one of those restaurants where a master chef prepares and cooks the food in front of you while you watch. The chef waited for last to cook Dan's filet mignon. To the surprise of no one but the chef, Dan ordered it well done, causing him to receive his food a little later than the others.
Back in house #8 it was time for the accounting party. Phil, June, Jay, and Mark T had all brought laptop computers on the trip with them, but there was no suspense over which one would be used for the official accounting. Of course it would be Mark T's. Phil consoled himself with the knowledge that his laptop was the official DVD player of the trip. Jay felt good because his was the official net surfing laptop. June breathed a sigh of relief, because no one would get a glance at the top secret CIA files on her laptop. Mark used his prowess for dividing the world into "Booze" and "Non-Booze", and made quick work of the accounting. After the accounting party, some of the non boozers turned into boozers. All booze was free now since there was no way they could be charged for it.
After Jeff was presented with a Whistler T-shirt to thank him for organizing the trip, and Dave showed everyone how he used the light fixure to recharge himself, there was nothing left to do except to sign the guestbook in house #8. Danny had been thinking all week about what to write, and had settled on, "Thanks Paul and Julie for a wonderful house and a wonderful vacation". But before writing this he took a sip of some bad screwtop wine, started feeling light headed, and abandoned his original guestbook entry in favor of a stream of consciousness entry that was a bit wordier.
Later that evening, the second annual Reindeer processional was held, using the reindeers and candles that Jeff found in house #11.
On Saturday the gang headed back to Vancouver to catch their flights home while June stayed an extra day in Vancouver to explore. On the way out they learned how the city of Vancouver pays to keep the airport so nice. They charge you a ten Canadian Dollar airport fee as you leave the country. This year's trip had been a great week of skiing, boarding, gaming, accounting, and birthday celebrations, and everyone was already looking forward to next year's trip.