One

Let the snow begin*.

Saturday was our first ski of the season, with Whistler Blackcomb opening the previous day, a week earlier than planned.

While only the front part of Whistler mountain was open – five lifts/gondolas and 20 runs – it wasn’t too busy. I think our longest wait was at guest services to collect our season passes.

Even the guys at the coffee shop commented about Saturday being quieter than Friday.

The snow coverage this early in the season is excellent – hence the early opening – with the base sitting at 208 centimetres. The long term forecast is for a very snowy winter.

From what I could gather, it was mainly locals – Whistler and Vancouver – who were skiing on Saturday. After all, we are the people who can easily get to Whistler Blackcomb.

Our first run was Whiskey Jack, a green run, and everything felt good and easy. Most importantly, I remembered how to ski. So we skied it again, just to make sure.

We spent the day skiing green and blue runs, and my skiing felt easy, fast and comfortable. At one point, A commented that I was flying down the slope. This pleased me no end, because improving my speed is one of my goals for the season.

My goals are:

• Skiing 40+ days for the season, topping last season’s 35.
• Cracking at least one 10,000+ metre day.
• Improving my speed.
• Keeping up with A. Sometimes, he might ski two laps of a chair at his speed, while I ski just one.
• Getting more confident on bumps and black runs.

We skied some bumps on Saturday, including the very bumpy Old Man. (“The run is named after me,” A said). It was not fun, and I fell twice, the first time when I was standing still and lost my balance.

To compensate for this, we skied the easy version of our normal route to Red chair, which we’d already skied, to end the day on a high note.

The downside to the early opening was the compulsory download from Olympic station. While there were people skiing out, we let the gondola take us down the mountain (to the pub). Our legs were sore, and perhaps we aren’t quite ski fit. Yet.

* With thanks to Jon for this statement. It’s his Facebook status from Saturday. We saw him and Matt on Saturday, from Emerald chair, so we skied after them to say hello and make plans for lunch.