I’m taking a short break from the Maui posts to add an entry for some of the more interesting things we’ve been up to over the past week or so. It’s been a very busy time since we came back from Maui, and with the upcoming trip to India, time is just flying by. This post covers some fun rugby and soccer events we attended, as well as a weekend spent in the great outdoors! And it’s a big one, so I hope you have some time…
Canada 7s - Rugby 7s at BC Place
March 3-5
The weekend after we got back from Maui, we had the whole weekend planned to spend at BC Place watching the Canada 7s ruby 7s tournament. For those that have followed the blog for a while, you’ll know that we’ve attended this event almost without fail for close to a decade now. I think we’ve hosted it 8 times (with some missed years thanks to COVID), and I’m pretty sure we’ve been to all but one. It’s a super-fun event, maybe the best sporting event on the calendar all year.
For the uninitiated, rugby 7s is rugby, played on the same sized pitch as 15s, but with only 7 people per side. Games are 2 7-minute halves, and despite these limitations (or maybe because of them?), the game is incredibly fast paced, and often surprisingly high scoring.
Most years, the mens and womens tournaments are held separately. This year they decide to combine them together. Which was great - our women’s team is stronger than our mens, and it’s great to support both. The downside (as it turned out) was that it extended the tournament from 2 days to 3 days - and that’s a long time to site in cramped seats in a stadium.
One of the better costumes from the weekend.
The games started at 3:00 pm on Friday and went through until about 9:30 pm. They picked up again on Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. and went through until 6:30 p.m. And then again Sunday from 9:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. That’s a lot of rugby. And a lot of bad sporting event food, as well as maybe a bit too much beer. But it’s fun!
Some of the action from one of the women’s games versus Australia.
Justine and I managed t make it pretty close to the start on Friday afternoon. On the men’s side, we were in a group with Ireland, Chile and Australia. A tough group, but we had a chance. We lost the first match to Ireland pretty badly - 35-5. But in the last match of the day, Canada actually beat Australia! That was a huge outcome and game us a chance to advance. On Saturday, we beat Chile setting us up for the Cup round of the playoffs - as long as Ireland could beat Australia. Sadly, that didn’t happen and on point differential, we missed out. In the quarter finals on Sunday we lost to South Africa, ending our tournament in a 15th place tie. Not great.
The women did us much better Despite losing to Ireland and the US, their win over Brazil gave them a chance. They lost to New Zealand (the eventual tournament winners) by only 10-5, pushing the #1 team to the limit. That set up a 5th place showdown with Fiji. They sadly lost that game, ending up 6th - which was their best result all season! It was great to cheer for them.
Overall, it was a great event and a fun weekend. Sadly, there’s rumour that they will reduce the number of stops on the tour and that Vancouver might get left out. Which is a shame, as this is such a great event. We’ll see what next your brings.
Vancouver Whitecaps - Soccer at BC Place
March 8, 2023
Justine and I split a pair of season’s tickets for the Whitecaps with a friend of ours. We got to our first game of the season, a Champions League game against Real Club Deportivo España, Real España. España is a Honduran professional football club, which plays in the Liga Nacional de Fútbol de Honduras. This was our first Champions League game, and it was a beauty!
The Whitecaps had lost their first 2 matches of the season, but had been generally playing well. We didn’t have a lot of expectations for this game, but the team came out flying! We were up 1-0 at the half, then exploded for 4 more goals in the second half for an emphatic win! I’m not sure I’ve ever seen them score this many goals! This was a fun way to spend a Wednesday night!
After the match, as is the Whitecaps tradition, we got to sing Stand by Me to celebrate the victory!
Skiing at Whistler
March 11
For many reasons, it’s been a rough start to the year. As a result, here we are at the beginning of March and we haven’t even been out skiing once! Thankfully, we fixed that on Saturday. Despite it being the first weekend of spring break, we decided to brave heading to Whistler to get a day of skiing in. It hadn’t really snowed much in the days leading up to the weekend, so we braced ourselves for the worst - busy on the slopes and marginal conditions. Thankfully we were wrong on both accounts!
It was snowing a bit at the base of Harmony.
We left really early on Saturday morning, getting on the road by 6:00 a.m. We thought we were early enough, but the traffic heading up to Whistler was the worst we had ever seen. It seemed to confirm the worst of our fears for the day.We got parked and then met up with our friend Nicole who was skiing with us for the day.
Ready for a day on the slopes!
The line for the gondola up from the Creekside base was pretty big, but it moved quite well, and before long we were whisked up and onto the mountain. As it turned out all of our fears were misplaced. The business of the drive up never really materialized on the mountain. The lift lines were manageable (for a Saturday), and the snow turned out to be surprisingly good. There wasn’t any new snow, but what was there was in really good shape. There were a few icy patches here and there, but generally the conditions were quite nice.
We started with a couple warm up runs on Emerald, then headed over to Harmony once it opened. We did a few runs there before continuing out to Symphony chair. The conditions were mixed - generally the visibility was OK, but every once in a while, the clouds dropped in and the visibility disappeared. It also was snowing on-and-off most of the day. It was actually quite nice.
Around lunch time we made the calculation that our legs were going to run out soonish. So we started making our way back towards Creekside. We did a couple more runs, eventually ending up at the top of Peak Chair and doing our customary Peak-to-Creek run to end the day. While it was only 1:00 p.m, it was a good 4 or 4 1/2 hours of skiing, so not bad for our first day out. We felt we earned a reward, so we headed to Dusty’s for a drink and some food before making the drive back to Squamish.
Our day of skiing!
Nicole and her partner Anthony were kind enough to let us sleep over at their place, as we hoped to extend our adventures into Sunday. So we headed back to their place and got cleaned up. After a shower and a change of cloths, we headed into Squamish for the evening.
It had been a few years since Jus and I had really spent any time in Squamish, so Nicole and Anthony gave us a bit of a tour. It’s crazy how much development has happened. After the tour, we stopped at A-Frame brewing, one of the main microbreweries in Squamish. The have a nice patio with a fire pit and our timing was perfect, as we got a seat at the fire. Their beer was also excellent, and we had a nice time sitting outside enjoying the fire.
After hanging out there for a couple of hours, we headed over to Backcountry Brewery for dinner. We had a bit of a wait to get a table, so settled in at a place nearby for a drink. They had housemade cider on tap that was quite nice.
We were joined by Nicole and Anthony’s friend Joe, who was a blast and rounded out our little group for the evening. Once our table was ready we settled in to some amazing pizzas and great beer.
An lovely assortment of new beer to try.
Eventually it was time to call it a night and head back to Nicole’s. The clocks were changing on us that night, but we still got a good night’s sleep, sleeping in a bit before our Sunday adventures.
Sea to Sky Gondola - Squamish
March 12
Sunday morning (partially because of the time change) we all slept in a little bit. Or a lot for me. We eventually got up and going, with the intent to take the Sea to Sky Gondola up to the top and do some snow shoeing. We started off by heading into downtown Squamish for a stop at a new coffee/donut shop that Nicole was raving about. The donuts were quite tasty and we enjoyed one sitting outside in the sunshine!
Heading up on the gondola
We headed over to the parking lot, but as we got geared up, I discovered that my snowshoes (now almost 20 years old) had finally died - the plastic housing that you strap your boot into had disintegrated! Damn - time for some new ones I guess. Not to be deterred, we decided to head up and just do some hiiking.
The view down into Howe Sound from the observation deck at the top of the gondola.
Once we got sorted at the top, we headed over towards one of the trails we thought we’d check out. They had set-up some bird feeders and a few stellar jays were making quite the noise!
The first trail we picked was the Panorama Trail, which was a short trek out to an observation platform overlooking Squamish and the Chief.
As the first trail wasn’t very long (just 1.6 km round trip) and the weather was still very nice, we decided to do a second, longer trail. We headed out past the Tubing Park (which looked fun) and onto the main trail that heads out into the backcountry. We followed that a ways before branching off onto the Wonderland Trail.
There was a nice little side trail that look us down to circle around Wonderland Lake. Calling it a “lake” was a bit of a stretch, but it was a pretty little side trail.
The second trail we did was not that long either - a bit more than the previous one, and we wrapped the day at about 5 km in total. Not a lot frankly, but still it was nice to get outside into such amazing surroundings and enjoy a somewhat sunny day in the snow.
The map of our hike around the summit at the Sea to Sky Gondola.
After the second trail was wrapped, we spent a little bit of time at the lodge and on the suspension bridge. It’s seriously high up over the gorge and gives some pretty great views.
After exploring the area around the top of the lodge, we decided to call it a day. It was nice enough outside that we grabbed a beer and some snacks and sat on the patio with the amazing view! Sadly, eventually the weather did shift. The sun disappeared and the wind picked up and it even started to snow a little bit. By the time we wrapped up, we could no longer see the mountains. I hope that those people in the backcountry knew when it was time to head back.
Beer and poutine - a great way to wrap up our weekend!
After that it was just a matter to head back down and then make the drive home. It was a great weekend all around. So great to get out into the mountains for a bit and enjoy the little bit of winter that was left.