Despite the fact that she travelled all last week and got in late on Friday night, Justine was a trooper this morning in agreeing to get up early and head up to Whistler to get in some late-season skiing. This season has been a bit of a disaster really (for skiing anyway), with the weather and show being really poor early on, then with Justine and I traveling a fair bit once the conditions improved. As such, we'd only gotten out once before, and we wanted to get at least one more day in before giving up on the season.

It was an amazing day at the top of Whistler, with nothing but blue sky as far as the eye could see.

We got off to a bit of a late start (normally we leave around 6:00 a.m.) given the late night on Friday, and were up at the mountain by late morning. It was an amazing day, with nothing but blue sky, and the temperature was pretty warm. There had not been any new snow for a while, so we were not really sure what the conditions would bring.

The visibility was pretty much unlimited.

Once we were up at the top of Whistler Mountain, we did a quick run to get warmed up, as it had been a while since we had skied. With that out of the way, we headed up to the top of the Peak Chair, to see what the conditions on the Saddle were like. That turned out to be an excellent idea, as the run was in great shape, and was fast and not too icy, allowing us to really ski it hard.

Surprisingly, the mountain was pretty empty - it was easily the slowest I've ever seen it - which let us basically ski onto the lifts all day long, which was amazing. We did 2 or 3 runs up and down the Saddle, racing from top to bottom, trying to see who could be fastest.

A pano of the Peak of Whistler. You can see the Saddle in the middle of the picture. It was fast and fun today.

After a couple of runs, we decided to try and to the full Peak-to-Creek run, which takes you from the very top, to the very bottom of the mountain. The top third of the mountain was great. Very similar to the Saddle - fast and firm, with enough snow, but some icy patches that made it challenging. The middle third was awful - hard as a rock, with ice moguls everywhere that jarred you at every turn. It was not fun. The bottom third, after the snow soften up was really nice and fun. The moguls were still there, but the snow was soft, so they were lots of fun. Sadly, the snow was melting and the last bit at the bottom was starting to show the ground through the snow.

Justine taking a break on the bottom third of Peak-to-Creek. The snow had softened nicely, and we found a nice place to take a little break in the sunshine.

After catching a ride back up on the gondola, we headed over to Harmony to see what the snow was like over there. As with most of the other lifts we'd been on today, the lines were non-existent, which was amazing.

We skied along the Ridge at the top of Harmony, but the snow just wasn't as good. It was OK, but we had seen better conditions, and we wanted to go back over to the Saddle.

We ended up doing 2 or 3 more runs up and down the Saddle, and sadly Justine clocked a higher speed than me on the Whistler run tracking app. My top speed was registered at 68 km/h, while she recorded 74 km/h. I am suspicious, as the run that she recorded her top speed was also the one where I recorded mine. But I beat her down the hill, after starting after her, so I'm not sure how that works really. Needless to say is was the subject of some debate...

I didn't record all of our runs today (it totally kills the battery on my phone), but I did record a few of them.

Our final "race" of the day. Considering I won, I'm still not sure how Justine recorded a faster run than me. I think one phone or the other was lying...

After a couple of more runs our legs were pretty much dead. It was a great day, so we decided not to push it too much, and headed up to the patio at Roundhouse for a beer to end the day.