It was hard to roll out of bed at 6:30, but I somehow managed.  The ride to Whistler was pretty good although there were no less than 3 speed traps on the way.  Whistler itself had received a ton of snow early in the week, but unfortunately was dry both Friday and Saturday.  I imagine that was the reason the hill was fairly empty and the lift lines were relatively short. Jen, Ryan, Cheryl and I cruised the blues on Blackcomb before meeting up with Jen and Glade (yes, another Jen).  At that point we decided to head up Whistler and hang out in the Flute/Oboe/Piccolo areas of the Whistler backcountry since there lay some steep North facing slopes.  While up there we saw the remnants of a pretty big slide.  Glade had skied under that slide area Saturday morning (we later found out it fell Saturday afternoon and took a skier with it who was standing 15ft from the cornice - that skier had to be dug up and heli-evacuated).  Anyhow, we continued past that area and got in some very respectable turns.  Enough to merit the 30 min walk. At the base we were discussing our turns when I found out that one of Jen's friends was killed in an avalanche last year.  Later on in the conversation I found out that she was killed in the same slide as Craig Kelly (who was my snowboarding idol as a kid).  Apparently she got to go heli skiing on a day's notice for free because someone had to cancel.  Very sad.  The freakiest part of this was that just this Friday I had just posted a Craig Kelly memorial in my office...  What a co-incidence... At the end of the day we met back up with Ryan/Jen and Cheryl and they made a mean pasta dish which was oh so good.  It was really good to see them.  We don't see enough Wawa folk around here.  Hopefully Ryan can send me his pics.

Well, I drove to Vancouver late Friday night to meet Jen and Ryan who flew up from Ontario to check out the mountains. By the time I arrived in Vancouver everyone was asleep, so it wasn't until the morning that I had a chance to say hi.  Saturday we went to the Granville Island Market for breakfast.  I wasn't impressed, but that's probably because I had some weird noodle sandwich and a melon smoothie.  We then hiked around the 8.5k Stanley Park Seawall loop which was very scenic.  Afterwards we went over to Lynn Canyon on the north shore to check out a suspension bridge you don't have to pay for.  If you'd like to pay to stand on a suspension bridge you can visit the Capilano bridge.  After this we went to Grouse Mountain and took the Skyride up to the top.  For those of you who are thinking about doing this...  Consider booking a reservation for dinner as you get to ride up for free instead of having to pay $25 each.  Also, in the Spring, Summer and Fall you can just hike up. I'll talk about Sunday in another post because this is getting long :)

Welcome to Aaron's World.  This is a temporary replacement for my blogger site.

Ah, yes, volleyball night. I played a couple of games at the pro club tonight. It wasn't as good as usual because there seemed to be a couple of weak players there. There is actually a separate court for folks who don't play well, but sometimes people don't understand the format I guess... Volleyball is one of those sports where one bad player can really ruin a game. It's not like basketball where you can choose who to pass it to or just take it to the hoop yourself. A bad player in a volleyball game will be who the opposing team always serves to... If the setter doesn't get a good pass then you won't get any good hits etc.. In a normal rally 3 people touch the ball, if one of them is someone who can't play then it doesn't matter how good the other two are. Also, court coverage gets really messed up if someone on the court doesn't know how to play. So that's why there's two courts. Anyhow, enough ranting :)Henry asked me to give him a ride to Chaplins to pick up his car. He had some problem with it rattling. Turns out they found a massive set of pliers in his oil pan left there from when he got his oil changed at Jiffy Lube... Even though he gets to keep the pliers he still doesn't want to ever go back there... The pliers were pretty big too, about the size of a wrench. Very heavy duty.I think the visit ended up costing about $180... Ah well.