Driving western Canada

□ Day 4 (15 Feb) Squamish ⇔ Whistler (3)

Breakfast was frozen spring rolls and cheese meat pies, chicken soup with shell pasta, and so on. It was supposed to come with potato salad and juice, but they had vanished from the fridge where we'd put them! Even though we'd written our names on them. Probably another guest took them. A shame.

Today we would ski both Whistler and Blackcomb. Naoto rested in Whistler Village. The weather was perfect again today. Diamond dust was sparkling too. As it was Sunday there were lots of people. First, Whistler Mountain. With three of us, many people rode the lift with us. Canadians chat to you quite casually even when they know you're Japanese. We could more or less understand most of it, and reply in broken English. A lot of it was "Where are you from?" or "Japanese food is great", but at one point a funny Canadian got on our lift. At first he talked about the usual things, but gradually he started firing off dirty jokes. Not that we understood English dirty jokes. We knew they were dirty jokes because of the big gestures around his crotch. He said he was 41, and he was a really funny guy.

We skied the runs we hadn't covered on the first day. "Staccato Glades", a tree run where you weave between countless trees growing on a bumpy slope, demands quick turns, and it's thrilling and fun. The advanced "Dave Murray Downhill", used for the Olympic alpine skiing events, is a superb run: steep with no moguls all the way. We picked up so much speed that the only way to control it was to fall. It has apparently been used as a World Cup course many times.

There were still many runs we hadn't skied, but from midday we rode the "PEAK 2 PEAK" gondola, newly completed in 2008, spanning 4.4 km between Whistler and Blackcomb, over to Blackcomb. There are only four towers between the gondola stations. It passes more than 400 m above the valley between the two mountains. The unsupported span is 3.024 km, said to be the longest in the world. Far below we could see Whistler Village, a completely frozen lake and even the Sea to Sky Highway.

Arriving at Blackcomb, we visited the Blackcomb Glacier we had enjoyed yesterday once more. This time we aimed for the parts we hadn't skied yesterday. Even coming two days in a row, this glacier has a grandeur that moves you just as much. After that we enjoyed all sorts of runs and charged into the park with its jumps. Features in this park are marked S, M or L by difficulty. The jumps marked "L" are enormous, and watching boarders launch big airs and spin in the air left our jaws hanging. Meanwhile we charged at the "M" jumps! Sometimes it went well, sometimes it hurt... Horibe even tried the halfpipe on skis.

Back home in Squamish. Tonight's dinner was a Special Menu! We had bought a whole big lobster at the supermarket. As we roasted the lobster whole in the oven, its dark colour turned bright red. Once it was done we split it down the back in one stroke. The tail was packed with meat. The meat was really plump, and dipped in butter it was incredibly good!! We cracked the claws and ate the meat inside too. The other dish was okonomiyaki with bacon. Because we used red cabbage, the whole thing was purple. We seasoned it with consommé, but it turned out surprisingly Japanese-tasting. When eating it we tried salt and pepper, a knob of butter, and maple syrup.