I'll start this report with a Steve story.  My K2 skis that I've had for about six years are really ruined.  Skiing over rocks has ripped the base of my skis down to the core.  At the top of Whistler there is a Performance Ski Center where for only $10 Canadian you can rent any of several top of the line skis for an hour.  Since I'll soon be in the market I went in and rented a pair of the best Atomic skis money can buy.  I put them on and almost immediately fell on my butt.  I was shocked that there could be so much difference in my K2s and these Atomics!  I was going to head right off the wall down a steep hill, but said to myself that just maybe I should start on an easy slope.  I took about two shaky turns and down I went with the skis coming off and flying all over the place.  What the heck was going on? About this time Yvonne saw me and came up behind me.  I got up and thought maybe I should take up Canasta instead of skiing.  I started down this little non-hill again barely staying on my feet, wobbling all over the darn place worse than any beginner on the hill.  Suddenly Yvonne yelled, "Hey Steve, why don't you buckle your boots?  It might just help your skiing!".    I had totally forgotten in my excitement of trying new skis that I had just come out of the restaurant where I had unbuckled my boots.  Well for those who don't know, it is just about impossible to ski with your boots undone.  After that the Atomics skied pretty good.  So Yvonne probably saved my life and certainly my morale. I would have blithely just continued to struggle until I broke a leg.
    Another experience that I had involved a little old seventy-one year old man I met one day at lunch up on the mountain.  He asked if I had ever skied the Blackcomb Glacier.  I said no and he asked if I would like him to guide me over there.  After an immediate reflex "No thanks", I rethought and said I'd appreciate him taking me there since I probably wouldn't do it on my own.
First we rode up the Glacier Lift and then had to take a T-bar tow up several more hundred feet. After managing not to fall off of the T-bar we then had to remove our skis and climb a short but steep hill to cross over to the Glacier.  I was sweating and panting and little old Hugh McInnis wasn't even breathing hard. He was in great shape and an expert skier. At the top of the world we put our skis back on and skied past the Blowhole which is a sheer absolutely vertical drop off that looks impossible but which some people actually ski.  That got us over to the Glacier and a large steep bowl.  The beginning of the bowl was sheer and moguls (bumps) ,but you could traverse along the edge to get around to easier terrain.  That was good in theory and we started around the bowl when the snow reached out and grabbed my ski pole right off my hand.  I looked behind me and there was no pole.  It had decided to roll about fifty feet down the hill right into the hardest patch of moguls.  That decided it for me that I was about to do the toughest moguls of my life with only one pole so I could retrieve the other one.  Well I managed that in pretty good fashion, but by now I was sweating bullets and embarrassed.  Finally I rejoined with Hugh and looked out over a truly spectacular vista.  We skied down the Glacier and around the backside of Blackcomb for about four miles. It was an electrifying experience for which I thank Hugh for picking up a stray and opening a new part of the mountain.
    My right thumb had been killing me for quite awhile and I thought I was through skiing for at least the year.  On Friday Feb. 9 I went to Dr. Rivera, my Sports Medicine medic and he dosed me up with Prednisolone pills. I took the first six pills when I got home and the hand felt fine on Saturday.  Sunday we decided we had best ski when I could so I got on the Internet and started figuring out where and how to go.  Bottom line is we flew out at 0600 Monday morning headed for Vancouver via Denver. We had no problem getting onboard either UAL flight.  We did have a three hour wait between planes in Denver.  From Vancouver to Whistler is a two and a half hour bus ride on Perimeter Whistler Express along the Sea to Sky Highway, Canada 99.  It is a lovely ride along the coast and then up into the mountains.  After traveling about fourteen hours we arrived at the Marriott Residence Inn where we had previously stayed.  Nice separate bedroom and a comfy living room with fireplace and full kitchen and complimentary breakfast all for $C250 or $165 US. We went to our favorite Whistler restaurant, Monks where we had soup and a couple of appetizers, all of which were too spicy for Yvonne. Then fell into bed exhausted from a long travel day.
       Skied Whistler mountain on Monday and had a really good day.  Took Yvonne up to the peak where the views were magnificent.  The sky was crystal clear and you could see forever. We skied the Saddle which is a steep Blue (Intermediate) run. You go through a small depression (the saddle) to get from one side of the mountain to the other and look down thousands of feet to the village. Several people commented that they thought several of the Whistler Blues would be Black (Expert) runs elsewhere.  I agreed with that assessment.  In the afternoon Yvonne and I separated so she could ski on slopes she felt comfortable on and I went and did several Black runs and the Ptarmigan which was a wonderful Blue run with the best snow conditions of the week.
     On Tuesday we stayed on Blackcomb mountain and the conditions were pretty bad. The visibility was lousy that day with clouds blanketing the mountain and the snow was rock hard and difficult to grip.  It hadn't snowed for several days and the daily grooming just packed the snow down harder and harder.  Yvonne had a hard time  not sliding and wasn't feeling very well so she only skied half the day.  I covered the whole mountain from top to bottom and that was also my Glacier experience.  After the Glacier experience mentioned above, I immediately fell asleep for two hours after getting back to the hotel.  We went to the Crab Shack for (what else) delicious king and dungenous crabs and then back to bed for this exhausted fellow.
       Wednesday we went back to Whistler. The two mountains are right next to each other and you can ski between the two (kind of).  Yvonne got upset when I took her on a steep icy Blue that she didn't like so off she went back to Ego bowl and Jolly Green Giant, her favorites. It was blowing hard and the wind chill was said to be minus fifty degrees Celsius! Frost bite warnings were issued, and the shops were doing a brisk business selling face warmers, and hand and boot heaters. It was downright COLD! I discovered the Dave Murray Downhill race course and did several runs imagining myself to be a World Cup skier. Absolutely the only difference between them and me is about forty years and 50 mph skiing speed.  It was a thrill racing (all is relative) down the course and seeing what the good guys see when tearing down the hill.  We went down to Monks again for a wonderful sixteen ounce prime rib which we shared along with a nice carafe of merlot. I actually stayed up until ten pm watching a Fox TV show that "proved" we never actually went to the moon.  What a shame...I worked so hard on that project!  Shades of the alien autopsy they presented a couple of years ago.
       Thursday the 16th was out fourth and last day of skiing. It was again cold, minus 16 degrees C actual, but the wind had moderated.  And we got our first snow.  There were flurries most of the day and we picked up a couple of inches.  Yvonne loved the new snow, but in my opinion it just disguised the hard packed stuff underneath making it more difficult.  The downwhill race course was really slick and I had some interesting runs careening around the curves while trying to get my edges to grip the icy hardpacked snow and patches of sheer ice.
       We wanted to stay a couple of days longer but the Marriott wanted to raise the room rate up to C$650 from $250 because it was the start of Presidents Day Weekend which is apparently a biggie for them. I said no way, Jose!.  They let us check out and store our gear so we could ski all day and the use the hot tub, showers etc. before going back to Vancouver on the 6 pm bus.  In Vancouver we stayed at the Airport Fairmont Hotel right in the Terminal.  It is five star luxury and the price was right but we had to arise at 0400 the next morning so it was just a (nice) bed to us.
       We were lucky to get the last two First Class seats on the 737 from Vancouver to Chicago which made that four hours very pleasant.  We went over to the 1314 Orlando gate and found out there were over fifty people trying to fly standby.  We didn't make that flight so we went over to the 1415 gate where there were now seventy standbys.  Oh the joys of flying for free!  We had about given up on getting out of Chicago when they called our names and we were on board.  Once again things worked out well for us.