Winter Trip Chair
Josh Sensintaffar | Published on 3/4/2024
The ski club trip to Whistler Blackcomb in Canada was a huge success! The club had 13 members join us from far and wide. Charlise and Adaeze joined us from out of state. Adaeze had quite the adventure making it on to the last shuttle bus to Whistler from the Vancouver airport. A very helpful taxi driver spirited her through downtown Vancouver to meet the shuttle bus at the last stop in the city before getting on the highway up to Whistler. The shuttle bus drive was gorgeous and wound along the coast of British Columbia.
Our lodging accommodations in Whistler Village were excellent. We were walking distance to 3 different lifts, tons of restaurants, grocery store, and retail shops. The hotel had a nice outdoor hot tub and pool that many of us utilized after tough days of skiing and snowboarding on ice. The hotel allowed us to use a meeting room for free for our pizza welcome party. The pizza was from a local shop and was very tasty!
The mountain was huge but easy to navigate and provided free tours of each mountain. Many of us took the mountain tour of both mountains. The elevation at Whistler is only about 6,300 ft, so no altitude sickness! The peak to peak gondola provided a fantastic view of both mountains and was a quick way to cross between the mountains and get where you wanted to go. The snow conditions at Whistler Blackcomb could have been better. It was very icy and we saw lots of people struggling to maintain control. Charlise hurt her knee on the last day but we're happy to report it's much better now and hopefully that won't keep her from joining the club on another trip. Despite the icy conditions some intrepid skiers still hit one of Whistler's most famous double blacks... Spanky's Ladder. This year has been very challenging for snow conditions across all ski areas. It seems to be changing with all this recent snow in the last few weeks.
A unique highlight of the trip was the Crystal waffle hut on Blackcomb mountain. Bill Wright particularly enjoyed his waffle and it was gone within a few minutes of him sitting down with it. Another Canadian treat for many members were Beaver Tails, fried pastry flats with various sweet toppings served piping hot. As our president mentioned in his report the food in Whistler is top notch and offers a great variety to suit any travelers.
6 members went dog sledding and greatly enjoyed it. The dogs love to run and often times want to continue to run the trail even if they don't have passengers. The blonde dog with Cathy in the photo was named Reba McEntire, lol
20 members traveled to Telluride at the end of February for some phenomenal skiing! The snow, weather, and lodging were amazing! What else could you ask for from a ski trip??
We had 4 brand new members on this trip and I think we showed them a great time. Jeff and Callen were brand new skiers and they both did a great job! Callen is only 7 and he sent it down the hill like a pro. He even tried moguls and got a few turns in before he crashed. Holly and Gabe hadn't been skiing in a while but you never would have known that with the runs they went down. Holly dropped her pole off the lift on to a run that was so hairy it had a sign on it that said "Bad Idea"!! She was able to retrieve her pole and make it down to the village in one piece.
We had ski-in ski-out condos at Mountain Lodge at the top of the gondola. Many of our condos overlooked snowy peaks and ski runs. Many of us were running the Sunshine lift at the bottom of the run we started the day on until 4PM. Trying to get as many runs in as possible. The lodge has a wonderful pool and hot tub situated right under the gondola where many of us discussed our runs from the day. The staff at Mountain Lodge and Telluride resort are top notch! The made this trip seamless and enjoyable. The group sales department was even able to get some last minute lift tickets to 3 of our new members because they only bought three day tickets but enjoyed it so much they wanted to ski the 4th day as well.
We had our welcome party with pizza from Crazy Elk at one of the condos. Leslie and I rode the gondola down and carried 8 huge pizza boxes back to the condo for the party and they were still piping hot when we arrived to hungry skiers! It was standing room only but the pizza was great and everyone was lamenting on their first day of skiing with blue bird skies and amazing corduroy. Our third ski day brought 7 inches of fresh powder and it was our new skiers first experience with powder. Richard's nephew Danny joined us on the last ski day and I got the pleasure of showing him around the mountain. Danny and I were riding double blacks and anything extreme we could find until 2pm that last day.
A favorite spot for lunch and dinner in the mountain village was Tomboy Tavern. They had some amazing lunch options such as nachos with homemade cheese sauce, truffle fries, portobello mushroom burgers, and chocolate chip cookie skillet.
Our green bandanas were seen all over the mountain and we had an excellent group representing the Tulsa Ski Club.
Flatlands trip is at Telluride next year and the winter trip chair has already been working with Sam at Mountain Lodge to secure lodging for the club at this fantastic ski in ski out location.