This past January my wife and I took a trip to beautiful Whistler British Columbia. We drove up with my brother-in-law and his wife. The weather was perfect and we all had a grand time.

Whistler's Fairmont Hotel

We stayed two nights at the Fairmont hotel and were pretty darn pampered.  Once we checked in and got all our stuff up to the hotel room, I decided to go downstairs and get fitted for a snowboard.  You may not think it, but going to Canada really feels a bit like going to a European country.  The miles change to kilometers, gas is sold in litres, and accents abound.  The chaps that helped me into my snowboard boots and snowboard all had accents that I traditionally assign to Brits.  Perhaps I’ve mislabeled the accent.  The guys were extremely friendly and helpful, and put this snowboarding newcomer at ease.  Once I was fitted the guy who was helping me told me “Cheers, mate.” and I was off to the register to pay.  Since I had reserved the snowboard online a few days before back in Bellingham the cashier told me, “You’re good.  Cheers, mate.”.  “Cheers, mate”.  I like the sound of that.  I thought to myself, “I’m going to start using that instead of saying ‘goodbye’”, but then I thought, “Nope, don’t see that happening.”  It’s just not the same coming out of an Americans mouth.

After getting fitted for a snowboard I went back up to the room and met back up with the gang.  We played some pinochle for a bit until my brother-in-law started losing and decided not to play anymore then we were off to eat.  The first evening there we had some really tasty sushi.  After dinner, we stopped at a store and picked up some hats and bathing suits (some of us forgot hats and/or bathing suits in the states).  We headed back to the hotel and suited up for the hot tub.  We ended up in the outdoor hot tub and discussed George “Dubya”, Canadian and American holidays, and driving styles of Americans and Canadians with a few Canadians I’d say in their mid-twenties.  A relaxing evening.  We headed to our room and prepared for bed.  Tomorrow would be my first day snowboarding.

Chris on his rear

The next day we grabbed our gear, got lift tickets and headed up Blackcomb Mountain (the mountain next to Whister Mountain).  Just moving up to the lift the first time with the snowboard attached to me was awkward and I don’t know that I ever got comfortable scooching up to the lifts with the snowboard attached to my foot while trying to maneuver with the other foot.  My brother-in-law and his wife were pleased that I didn’t fall getting off the lift for the first time.  On our first run I quickly learned that catching an edge on my heals came pretty easy to me but catching an edge on my toes was very hard/impossible for me to do.

With my first snowboard run under my belt I was a bit disappointed in myself as I had fallen a handful of times (I was totally expecting to be an instant expert…or at least not embarrassing).  I also was in a bit of pain.  I had fallen several times on my chest and I had unwisely placed my cell phone in my chest pocket.  “No problem” I thought to myself, “I’ll just stop falling down.”  I know what you’re thinking; Chris Cabe = genius.  We headed up the lift for our second run.

Getting on a lift with a snowboard attached to me I found to be a little more awkward than skis, but it wasn’t all that bad.  Getting off the lift proved to be a challenge.  When you get off the lift you are supposed to point the tips of your skis/snowboards up so that the tips don’t get wedged in the snow and pull you down, face first, into the snow.  I failed to pull my snowboard up in time.  The front of the board got wedged in the snow, leaving me no choice but to dive, flat bellied on the snow.  I clasped both hands behind my head to protect myself from the lift chair and other skiers disembarking the ski lift.  Once the lift chair that I was on had moved over top of me, I shimmied out of the line of traffic army commando style all with a snowboard strapped to my foot.  It was the only time all day that I failed to make a successful lift exit.

Not really me, but I can do this now

As we completed more and more runs, I continued to fall more and more times, and these falls were really starting to take a toll on my body…specifically the chest area, to be even more precise, right around the chest pocket area where I had my cell phone.  On falls now my chest pocket area was an explosion of stabbing pain.  I guess I had fallen right on my cell phone one too many times.  It felt like my rib was broken or my lung had collapsed…all the things that conjure up extreme pain in the chest area, that’s what it felt like.  I decided to move my cell phone to my front pants pocket.

I was also flippin’ exhausted.  I never really got to the point where I was good enough to test this theory, but constantly falling down and getting up and falling down again several times is far more tiring than just staying on your snowboard and zipping down the mountain.  I don’t know if it was from the constant falling and getting up or from the cell phone stabs to the chest or maybe both, but after about the third run I was sucking wind and finding it hard to get a good breath.  I felt the totally exhausted gag reflex begin to set in and so I decided to take a breather at one of the base camps on the mountain.  I took my heavy coat off, plopped down and drank some water.  I noticed when I sat down and rested for a moment my eyes couldn’t focus on anything in my center of vision…only my peripheral vision was good.  I felt a bit loopy.  “Weird,” I thought to myself.  I asked my friends if they were experiencing the same thing…I don’t remember how they responded.  After a few cups of water we were headed back up the mountain for some more runs.

Whistler Blackcomb Peak-to-Peak

About mid-day we decided to ride the peak-to-peak from Blackcomb Mountain to Whistler Mountain.  The peak-to-peak is a gondola that opened in December.  Once we arrived at Whistler Mountain I did the suck wind and drink water thing at the lodge, while my brother-in-law and his wife went for a few more runs.  We met back up and had lunch at Whistler Mountain’s Roundhouse Lodge.  I saved a table while my companions got in line to get their lunches.  I took this opportunity to plot my course down Whistler.  I was pretty much spent at this point so I decided I’d take the green (beginner) routes all the way down.  We discussed our plan over lunch and decided that I would go down Whister Mountain and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law would go back across on the peak-to-peak.  We would meet up at the hotel at the end of the day.

The route I chose didn’t look to bad on paper, but the Roundhouse Lodge stands at 6,069ft. and is at the top of the Whistler Village Gondola.  The Whister Village Gondola takes 25 minutes to get from the village to the lodge, and the village was my destination.  I was in for a long snowboarding run.  My chest, face, and rear became very well acquainted with Whistler Mountain that afternoon.  The run was slow and exhausting but I finally made it back to the hotel.  I never really felt comfortable on the snowboard.  I need to try it again at some point but not for a good while.  I was looking forward to some hot tub time that evening.

I met back up with my wife who had been relaxing at the hotel and reading all day(the smarter one of the two of us).  Together we headed back up to our room and found the others.  We all decided to head down to the hot tub, which was packed.  After the hot tub we went back up to the room, got dressed and headed to Whistler Village for dinner.

We wandered down to the village.  The weekend we were there just happened to be some sort of college weekend.  College kids were gathered around the base of one of the ski runs watching skiers and snowboarders jump through a ring of fire.  We watched for a bit and then continued roaming the streets searching for a place to eat.  We settled on a bar/restaurant that looked decent enough and were seated at a table with a view of the village around us.  I ordered a beef barley stew.  My wife got a burger.  My brother-in-law ordered a pizza and my sister-in-law went with a bar-b-que chicken sandwich.  After a long wait our food arrived…that is, all but my sister-in-law’s food arrived.  The burger and pizza were good.  I tasted a few bites of my stew and quickly realized that it was a bowl of marinara sauce.  I tried to just go ahead and eat it, but ended up sending it back and eating some pizza and burger.  After awhile a girl arrived with a pulled pork sandwich for my sister-in-law.

“I ordered a bar-b-que chicken sandwich.”, explained my sister-in-law.

“Oh, we ran out of bar-b-que chicken, but here’s a pulled pork sandwich if you’d like that instead.”, retorted the server.

All of us at the table looked at each other and shared an “Are we in the Twilight Zone?” moment. I guess they ran out of something so they just assumed the second choice of anyone ordering a bar-b-que chicken sandwich would naturally be a pulled pork sandwich.  What the flip?  “Hey maybe that’s why I ended up with a bowl of marinara sauce.”, I thought to myself.  My sister-in-law requested a menu and ordered a salmon sandwich, which came 30 minutes after the rest of us were done eating.  Not the best restaurant experience but we didn’t let it ruin our fun.

The night before we left was tough for me.  I was in a fair amount of pain.  Lying down hurt.  Sitting up hurt.  Thinking back on it, pretty much any type of movement gave me varied amounts of pain.  I did manage a few hours of sleep but I remember lying there in the middle of the night wanting to fluff my flattened pillow and deciding that it hurt too much to try so I just lay there with my head sunk deep and unsupported.

The next morning we gathered our things, had a quick breakfast and headed back down south, and that was my January trip to Whistler in a nutshell.  A few days after we got back I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with a “contusion of the trunk area”.  Almost two months after the trip I still have the slightest bit of pain when I get up in the morning, but I’m glad I tried snowboarding.  Maybe someday I’ll muster up the courage to try it again.