Last weekend marked our third annual trip up to Whistler with a bunch of the folks from Dan’s lab at SFU. We stayed here, which was a definite improvement on past years accommodations, and actually quite affordable when split by 11 people.

I do not like skiing. I tried to learn when I lived in Banff but came to the conclusion that I would rather not pay large amounts of money to fall down repeatedly. However I do love to cook, so once again this year I carried on my tradition of being “personal chef” for the group. We did a big shop at Costco before driving up so there were plenty of provisions. The condo had a great kitchen and I had a great time preparing breakfast and dinner for a crowd every day. I’ve never cooked so much bacon in my life!

 
During the day, while everyone else was out skiing, I decided to venture out on some snowshoeing excursions. On last year’s trip I did a guided group snowshoe tour, which was fun but pricey. So this year I rented snowshoes in Vancouver and brought them with me to facilitate my solo exploration of the various trails around Whistler. On Sunday I snowshoed at Lost Lake, where I spent four hours on the extensive trail network and got to watch some of the Lost Lake Shuffle from my vantage point on a snowshoe trail bridge.

 
After spending Monday recovering (highlights of the day included board games and watching Battlestar Galactica projected on the wall of our condo), I set out on Tuesday to snowshoe in the brand new Whistler Olympic Park. Unfortunately they only have one relatively short trail at the moment (1.5 hours out and back), but it was neat to see the venue that will be hosting all of the Nordic Sports in 2010. I was able to see the biathlon range and the ski jumps, and there were event some jumpers practicing while I was there!

 
Tuesday evening it was time to head home. We witnessed an amazing sunset while driving along the Sea to sky highway. All in all, it was a great time. Maybe next year I’ll try cross-country skiing!