The weekend.....

Today is Monday and the weekend slipped by with lots of activities to keep us busier than I expected. The sun has been shining and the temperature hovering around zero and the visitors to this area are getting their eyes filled with the great vistas of Whistler area. The contrast from the other more foggy mornings and cloudy drizzle days is quite shocking. The rich blue sky is contrasted with the bright white cliffs and sheer faces of the snow covered mountains. It is totally invigorating to see such contrasts in nature.

Saturday was a day of celebration in the town of Pemberton. The early morning fog provided an eerie contrast to the upbeat and happy mood of the folks who had pulled themselves out of bed in the dark to be ready to see the flame go though their town at 8 am. We made our way to Tara-Lee’s place where she lives with Colin, Elisha, Harv and one additional person I have not met. Colin has done a fair amount of work on their place and it is large and open. Tara-Lee had made enough bacon and eggs for a small army in anticipation of the family coming for breakfast. We ate quickly as the front runners were by the house getting people excited about the flame that was “coming in 5 minutes”. There was quite the entourage as 8 police cars followed each other down the street. I guess in busy areas they block traffic but they looked odd in the procession down this quiet street. The main street was well populated with residents of the town of 2800. I think every house has one or two young families with one or two children and one or two dogs. There was a collection of high tech strollers (some of which are manufactured by Winabago) and many variation on the dog leash from simple rope to complex harnesses on dogs the size of a shoe to ones that are vying for pony classification. But back to the flame..... Ian Hanomansing, a CBC Vancouver reporter, was the runner that finished up in front of Tara-Lee’s place. He ran up to a lady who was excitedly waiting her turn and passed the flame to her in front of her many family members. The team then extinguished his flame and she set off on her run. The big guys running with her were there to make sure she had space to run and they made it quite clear that they would clear the space at your expense. The entourage continued around the corner to return to the downtown main street. We decided to go to the main street but got side tracked when Ian offered some of us to look and feel the torch. That set off the CBC Camera guy who started to film the manhandling of the torch and he settled on some comments by Tara-Lee as she stood there with coffee cup, sleep still in her eyes and hand firmly around the torch. It was quite fun. We then thanked Ian and we set off on our way. We walked back to Gray and Bree’s place through the busy main street. During the day there were pancakes, BBQs, polar bear swim in One Mile Lake, general party for kids and many more activities that culminated in the evening with a fireworks display. I was impressed with the echo sounds that reverberated around the valley when the fireworks were going off. All in all it was a pretty big day in Pemberton.

Once back at the house Gray and Bree left for a back country run on their skidoos. They went with a group of their friends and unfortunately experienced an accident during the day. Apparently Colin had landed a jump badly and he was seriously injured – enough that they had to summon a helicopter to get him to the hospital. Later, he was transported to Vancouver for further investigation. The rest of the group ran out with Colin’s sled and they managed to get back before dark. They were all very tired and worried about Colin. More news on Colin as we find out more.

On a lighter note, in the afternoon Freddi and I went into Whistler with Tara-Lee and we had a soup from the new Soup shop on “the stroll”. The Thai Chicken soup was delicious but the cost was a little unsettling. From there we just walked about and checked out a few shops and visited Canada House in the local Library. Inside there were information stations, a big cake, kids face painting and lots of torch bearers walking about with their torches and posing for pictures with families and other admirers. In addition, the presence of police has increased substantially over the last few days with RCMP, military police and I am sure there are some other forces that we don’t even see occupying corners and strategic locations around the town. We walked over to the Volunteer Centre as I wanted to buy a small back pack for use during my shifts and that was the only place that the packs were sold. In the village we noticed a marked increase in the number of people for the weekend. Small groups of colourful team jackets walked through the village familiarizing themselves with the town. We spotted several teams and were taken by the colours and the brightness of the country uniforms. Freddi and I then returned to Pemberton by bus and have been humoured by the still new bus drivers who were learning their way around the routes. This driver was more experienced than previous ones and seemed to know where he was going. The trip to Pemberton is somewhere between 35 minutes to 55 minutes depending on the driver’s experience and familiarity with the route. In the evening we prepared another large dinner for the family and enjoyed a good BBQ at home complete with lots of excited chatter and good wine.

Sunday was a day with a clear start but the weather closed in and some snow fell during the day. Freddi left very early for work as she had a shift that day. The photo herein is Freddi, her team mates and the Swiss team that dropped in during their practice sessions at the Sliding Centre. I joined Bree for the drive down to Whistler as she had to work this Sunday. She dropped me at the bottom of the hill before the gondolas opened so I had a few minutes to kill. I managed to get up Blackcomb Mountain very early and enjoyed a number of runs of freshly groomed trails. It felt good skiing after almost 11 months of having the skis in the bag. I was on 7th Heaven slopes when the clouds moved in and made visibility – well 0. That is a very unsettling feeling and I lost my balance during the white out. Later, I was joined by Gray and Harv around 11 am and we did a couple of fast runs. They go a lot faster than this old guy! They wanted to ski on Whistler Mountain so we took the new Peak2Peak gondola (picture above) that is an engineering marvel. Not being great at heights I watched the vista from the inside seats while Gray and Harv detailed all the steep tracks that w e were going over. We then hooked up some other friends and we went to the peak for a couple of runs in the clouds and the snow that was now falling. We skied until about 2 PM and my legs were screaming from the fast runs from top to bottom. It was a very good time for the first set of turns for the year.
The bus ride back to Pemberton was another adventure as this driver was nervous and new and therefore drove very slowly along the highway. Freddi and Tara-Lee were the last ones back to the house and Freddi wanted to see the news reports of the disastrous fire in the Ottawa CTV offices where her office is currently located. T&L has temporarily housed their executive offices in CJOH offices after their fire in the store last March 31. She was quite upset by this news as she has made some friends in that building. Our dinner was a Sunday roast which has been a tradition in our family for many years. It is so nice to have the family together for such simple activities. It was yet another good day with many activities coming to a close at the family dinner table.