Frankfurt onour way to Prague

10:00 Frankfurt airport and still a bit early in the morning, but that doesn't stop seasoned travellers :-)

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1

Some patches of sun got us out of the house today to test our new camera, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1. Ians little toy :-) Problem was, it startet to rain and snow(!) so the only thing we got, was a wet walk instead. I brought my "old" Canon 5D and luckily took a picture of our yellow bush in the garden before we left. The only picture we got... :-)

Despite the so-called ash cloud, the weather was rather nice for a moment. And the GF1? Will replace Ians small Canon G10. Result? The G10 will me MY "new" little camera. I don't mind leftovers like this one :-)

Prague trip down the drain?

I am more than a bit worried! The long planned Prague trip with the girls is probably slipping through our fingers. The volcanic eruption on Iceland with all its ash has grounded all planes in northern Europe. First the flight cancellation by Norwegian Air, then this nature catastrophe. Maybe destiny has decided for us? The trip is next Saturday, 7 days from now. Time will show...

The Eyjafjallajökull volcano which is spewing out these huge amounts of ash is close to Selfoss where we had the three earth quakes when we visited Iceland in May, only 160 kms from Reykjavik. Maybe those earth quakes were a warning for this to happen? We keep our fingers crossed...

Our boat

A Finnish Targa 31 feet twin engine motor boat. Actually identical to the Police boat in our area, but can sleep 6 people :-) Now we just need continous warm weather to warm up the North Sea in which we occationally swim - or ice skate.. Only 8 degrees in the water today. A bit cold...

The downside of spring...

 Service the boat engines. Our Targa 31 has two...

Sunny days - blue sky!

After months with snow we finally see signs of spring in the garden. We have had several sunny days and warm weather (well, above 10 degrees C..) and the kids have had their shorts on for a short periode a day. This is lovely! There is still snow in the mountains, and next weekend we will probably go for our last snowboarding trip, but in the meantime we marvel all the daffodils in our garden :-)

What you call these flowers I don't know, but we have lots of them too. Spring is really lovely!

Vancouver airport - our trip has come to an end :-(

As any other airport, but no people! No line-up for neither check-in nor security. Strange! But lovely! I have my last Starbucks Frappuchino Caramel for the holiday. Now it is back to vegetables and water... In Whistler there were no less than 3 Starbucks. I am glad we dont have any back home :-)

Our marvellous Easter holiday is unfortunately over. But I'll be back! This has been too good not to be experienced again! What a place - what a weather - what an adventure!

Now - hoping for an upgrade with KLM. Maybe we are lucky? Nope...

Squamish Adventure Center

On our way back to Vancouver with Pacific Coastline. Pitstop in the woods ;-)

Last on slope report...

The last day in Blackcomb mountain. It is lovely and sunny, the crowds from yesterday are gone and still lots of powder if you look for it. We do :-)

Friday 2.4 - Relaxing day

After 5 days on snowboard we decide to just have half a day in the mountains. We need to charge our bodies for the last two days. The snow is dumping and visibility is low, so this is a good choice. Estimated snow today is 10-20 cms with another 10 cm tonight. The 7th Heaven area has been closed most of today, so tomorrow we will have a pristine powder mountain waiting only for us! Optimistic we are :-)

Just had to share this ski-/snowboard lessons sign from this morning on top of the chairlift Solar Express. I definately like what is on the menu :-)

It is lunchtime and I am in for a treat. Asian Cuisine and Starbucks' Caramel Frappuchino afterwards. Oh life is unfair... ;-)

Thursday 1.4 - Another day in paradise

This morning we expected sun and blue sky, but instead we have cloudy weather and snow is starting to fall again. We have a bit "late" start at 9:45 and try the Excalibur gondola from Upper Village and end up on top of the Blackcomb mountain to check out the western runs we haven't tried yet. The weather is foggy at the top so our new goggles really are in their right element today. And they work perfect!

Check out the Sniffle Station, by the way! There is definately a first time for everything. I have never seen one of these before, but wow how convenient! No sniffling in the chairlifts for sure :-)

We play around in the western part of Blackcomb most of the day, first mainly because of the wind direction and second because I wanted to try the waffles at Crystal Hut for lunch :-) It starts snowing when we go for lunch to conquer two heavily laden waffles. Yumm...  Too bad it takes us 1 hour 10 mins to get them!! Busy restaurant...

But the waiting for the waffles was definately worth the wait. Not because of the waffles themselves, but for the 6-7 cms of new, fresh, pristine snow that had dumped on top of the well groomed pists while we waited for our lunch. We have three LOVELY runs of the long Ridge Runner that really made the day! Sore muscles, tired backs and happy faces reports from the Canadian mountains also today :-)

And the evening? In bed, with a good book, some bad tv-programs and the pc. Too tired to go to town. The Mongolian Grill have to wait until tomorrow...

Wednesday 31.3 - Here comes the sun!

Not too early today. Yesterday was a bit hard on our legs, so we had a quick trip down to Whistler village first to buy Ian some new goggles he put aside yesterday we were out shopping. Goggles for poor visibility, fog and snowy weather. And today? HERE COMES THE SUN :-) Must have been Ians goggles decision... Wise! :-)

From Whistler we take the Blackcomb gondola towards the top. A lot of the yesterdays powdered runs are groomed today. That's good and bad. Good for our legs though...Instead of doing the groomed pists we find the powder in between the trees. The whole area is covered in lovely trees, and without much wind the snow has made the mountains postcard pretty. Imagine to play all day on snowboards in these conditions:

And we still haven't visited the Whistler mountain! We leave that for tomorrow :-) Lunch again at our favourite Rendezvous restaurant before we take the long decent down to our hotel. Another very successful day in the mountains are over. Well back home at our hotel room we read the weather forecast for the rest of our stay. Guess what... We are in for another powder dump!!! Expected snow is: Friday 15-25cm, Saturday 5-10cm and Sunday 10-15cm. How can we be so lucky? And already these past few days have been every shade of amazing you can possibly imagine. Pure luck - and we're here!

WOOOAAAHHHH...!!!! Hear the scream - see the SMILE! Happy face indeed! :-)

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-

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-

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-