Whistler: Spanky’s Ladder
I can’t believe it’s the ski season of the year after, and I’m catching up with blog posts from last winter! Anyway, like the year before, we headed to Whistler over the Easter long weekend, this time for six days. It’s hard to beat the views there on a sunny day! The views from Seventh Heaven are some of the best Here are some highlights / observations: Our lodging this year was in the centre of Whistler Village. Since it wasn’t close enough to walk, we caught the (free!) shuttle daily. This worked out really well, except that the return shuttles were very oddly spaced out, sometimes leading to long…
Whistler: Seventh Heaven Skiing
The last time we skied Whistler was probably around ten years ago. In those days we still didn’t have kids and going up there for the day was a realistic option. Also, the price, or the price that we managed to get, was much more reasonable than Whistler prices these days. With our two kids, heading to Whistler for less than three days seems unreasonable. So for many years we just blocked Whistler from our skiing vocabulary, although it is by far the closest, most accessible ski resort for us aside from the North Shore mountains. Up, Up, Up We enjoy taking our skiing vacations somewhat late in the season…
Hemlock: Binge Skiing and Toddler’s Fracture #2
On the sandwich week between spring break and Easter we headed to Hemlock for a week of skiing. We rented a small Airbnb apartment on the mountain and were quite excited as we hadn’t really left the city since October… We tried to escape before the Friday afternoon rush hour but of course we got stuck right in it. Then a diaper emergency required us to make a break in the middle of the trip. Although Hemlock is technically not that far from Vancouver the trip seemed to take forever. Finally we were on the infamous road leading up the mountain and soon enough we were in a different universe. High snow banks on the two…
Hemlock: A Weekend Full of Skiing and Kids
We had never been to Hemlock (AKA Sasquatch Mountain) before so when a friend sent out an email that she had just booked a town house there for a weekend and was looking for other families to share it with, we immediately replied yes. The plan sounded simple enough – going up on Friday evening and enjoying some night skiing and then skiing all day Saturday and Sunday before returning to Vancouver. What could possibly go wrong? A week before our weekend came up, the road leading to the mountain got washed out and people were literally stuck there and had to be flown out with a helicopter. As much…
Big White: A Very Short Ski Season
Back in April, about ten days after we got back from our trip to Israel and Greece we headed to Big White for a few days. It became somewhat of a family tradition to spend Easter on Big White so we thought we’d keep it going even though our trip wasn’t exactly in Easter. We found a reasonable Airbnb on the mountain, rented a car and packed all of our ski gear + two kids and went on the five plus hours drive towards Kelowna. Our timing to leave in the early afternoon after Neil’s daycare was good and both kids were sleeping in no time. We managed to push…
Teaching a Two Year Old How to Ski: Three Seasons Later
When Neil was about to turn two, I started teaching him to ski. The beginning was slow, but seeing the smile on his face made it totally worth it. Three seasons later, he still has the ski bug. He now links turns down blue runs and enjoys small jumps despite breaking his leg while skiing. While I can’t tell you how to teach a two year old how to ski, I can tell you how we did it. This might not be for everyone – choose your method and timing appropriately for you and your family. We didn’t consciously choose to start teaching Neil how to ski when he was…
Big White: Ending the Season on a Good Note
Neil didn’t have the best start to his skiing season. On the second day he was up on Cypress he broke his leg and was off his legs for 3.5 weeks, and off his skis for about six weeks. However, aside from this (very) bumpy start, this season was great. We managed to go up to Cypress about once a week mid-week during the winter, and a few more times on weekends after we got back from Hawaii. Neil doesn’t seem traumatized and was excited about skiing again (to say the least). Last year on the Easter long weekend we headed to Big White for the season finale. I checked…
- Crosscountry Skiing, Downhill Skiing, Metro Vancouver & North Shore, Random Thoughts, Sea to Sky, Trips with Kids, Urban
Activities with an Active Toddler with a Toddler’s Fracture
December brought some extra challenges into our lives. It happened on December 2nd, when Gili took Neil skiing on their second day of the season. Neil was excited about skiing and was keen to go. I wasn’t able to go with them and was home when they returned. It seemed odd to me that Gili was carrying Neil to give me a hug and then he told me that Neil had injured himself and can’t put weight on his leg. I would never have guessed, since Neil seemed to be in a good mood… Since it was a few hours since the fall and he still couldn’t put weight on…
Vernon: A Real Canadian Winter Experience
As we were driving towards Vernon we started wondering what have we gotten ourselves into? Why for heaven’s sake, did we choose a cold destination for our Christmas break? We are much more summer weather people, especially in winter. If we go on an extended skiing vacation, we’d much rather do it in the spring, when the days are longer, and skiing usually involves sun and blue skies, and not -20c temperatures. Then we started thinking we must be getting soft, or old… we remembered one skiing trip where we camped (!) in -30c. If we could do that seven years ago, we figured there was no reason that we…
- British Columbia (and nearby), Chilliwack and Nearby, Coquihalla, Downhill Skiing, Okanagan, Trips with Kids
Big White: Winter Grand Finale
On the Easter long weekend we headed to Kelowna. The main purpose of the trip was to go skiing at Big White. I found a sweet deal at an Air B&B in Kelowna, off the road leading to Big White. Last year on the Easter long weekend we went to Silver Star which is farther away, Neil was exactly a year younger, and we both remembered that the drive took forever. Kelowna is “only” five hours away, and Neil was a trooper, so this time the driving part didn’t actually feel that difficult. We stopped for a break at Bridal Veil Falls by Chilliwack where we went for a short walk to…
