This past Saturday, Allan and I headed up to Whistler Blackcomb for a gorgeous, sunny blue bird day of snowboarding fresh powder. It was quite busy up there, but we still managed to find our stashes of powder.

We also brought along our new GoPro HD Hero helmet camera to capture some of the action. For those of you who have been following my blog for a while, you know that we had the regular GoPro camera before. I can say that the HD is a real nice upgrade. Much clearer photos and videos! Hopefully I’ll be able to edit the videos into a little movie soon.

Here I am wearing my new Volcom jacket and pants (both Gore-tex)… I’m loving how the wide angle really captures everything!

Powder spraying up on the sides.

Riding down one of the bowls on Blackcomb.

Even Allan got into the fun of it and attached it to his helmet for a while.

You’ll notice most of the shots are from the back of my board… we used the suction cup that we normally use for surfing to attach it to the back of the board… but be warned… sometimes it falls off in the deeper powder and you really have to keep an eye on it, or tether it to your board

All in all, a really fun day… and really nice to get back onto the mountain for some boarding. And, I thought this would be a great time to give away a BRAND NEW Women’s Volcom Snowboard Jacket on the blog! It’s the same jacket I am wearing in the photos above, but of course brand new with tags. All you have to do is leave a comment below, and I’ll pull a random winner on Sunday evening. If you remember my last contest, we gave away a snowboard outfit. Here’s the winner Rosy, who sent me a photo of her in all her new gear!

2010 Volcom GORE-TEX Satellite Snowboard Jacket Contest:
Sponsored by Volcom

Prize: 2010 Volcom Satellite Nimbus Women’s Snowboard Jacket in Bluebird, Size Medium
Value: $500 CAD
What you have to do: By Sunday, January 24th before 10:00 PM PST… just leave a comment on this blog post!
Who can enter: Anyone! You can enter for yourself, or for a friend, significant other etc etc…
Details: I will draw a random winner Sunday night, and I will ship the prize to the lucky winner anywhere in the world!

About the jacket: Yup, it’s totally GORE-TEX so awesome waterproofing. It’s got the works… fully taped seams, pant-to-jacket zips, Recco® avalanche system, Riri® waterproof zippers, a hood, a chin guard, vents, a powder skirt, a goggle pocket and audio pockets. My two favourite features? The built-in face mask and the Lycra hand gaitors to keep your hands warm in your gloves (you can see these in one of the photos above over my hands). Plus… I love the liner pattern!

That’s it! Good luck to everyone

I finally had a chance to edit the very mini HD snowboard video from our first day of the season at Whistler. It’s always embarrassing posting videos of yourself from the first day of the season, because… quite frankly… you look silly on video with shaky legs and not-quite-there-yet balance. Nevertheless, please do watch this video and feel free to have a chuckle

My legs are STILL sore from last Sunday. Song from Chixdiggit, filmed entirely hand-held on a Nikon D90 at Whistler Blackcomb. Click the video above!

In other news, I am very happy to say that this blog has come a long way since I started it just over a year ago! It’s been a fun ride, and I’ve really enjoyed meeting bloggers from Vancouver and around the world… exploring new places, sharing my photography and video, and frequently embarrassing myself on my blog.

Bear with me, I’m going to toot my own horn for a paragraph. I can’t help it! I can’t believe it’s been a year since I started the VancityAllie blog (although I’ve been blogging since I was 12 years old)…

In the past year, the blog has really surpassed my expectations and we’ve hit 1,632,517 unique visitors over the past year and 2,466,670 page views! 16 HD videos, over 1400 of my own photos uploaded, and a Twitter account with nearly 3,000 followers! We’ve got great rankings on Google and are averaging 100,000 to 300,000 unique visitors a month depending on content and time of year.

P.S. Did you enter the Westbeach contest below? We already have 114 entries!

Okay, now that that is out of the way…

I’m really excited about some of the trips we have coming up this December and next year. I’ll have lots more on the blog… more videos, more photos and more contests! But don’t worry, I’m still the same old me… clumsy, nerdy, and prone to ramble…

Hope everyone is excited for the Holiday season!

Update (November 30, 2009 10:30 AM PST): I will be doing the draw tonight for the Westbeach outerwear and post the results tomorrow. Stay tuned!

It’s been dumping snow here in BC, and for the past 3 weeks I’ve been DYING to strap on my board and get out there for some snowboarding… but I’ve been sick and low on energy lately. After waiting 3 weeks and just not being able to stand it anymore, Allan and I finally got up to Whistler Blackcomb on Sunday for some FANTASTIC boarding. Although I couldn’t do more than 3-4 hours on the hill, we definitely made the most of it.

It has snowed 259cm in the past week at Whistler, and even though it’s been snowing all the way through the week, we still got an extra 20 cm for our first day of the season yesterday. And it shows.

The runs were ridiculously powdery, even the groomers… although we ended up riding knee-deep untouched powder in the trees all day.

Allan had a great time too… he didn’t get a chance to ride his new board, but he was wearing a perma-grin on his face all day… despite this very sombre-looking gondola shot.

I was stoked on the new Westbeach outerwear this year, although my new white helmet hasn’t come in yet so it looks kind of funny with my green helmet from my old outfit of past years. I rode my new Burton Supreme boots and my new Burton Malolo… and let me just say…

… riding my Malolo in the trees all day let me know that the ‘Lolo was definitely the right choice for me. Oh man.

Here I am in the trees… far, far away!

Did I mention that it was sunny and blue skies for most of the day? We really lucked out! Even the birds came out to play in the snow.

For the readers of VancityAllie.com, I am happy to present a contest to win some brand new spankin’ outwear from a fantastic local company:

WESTBEACH LADY RACER JACKET AND RENDEZVOUS PANTS CONTEST NOVEMBER 2009:

What you are playing for (either for yourself or a friend, girlfriend etc):

• A Westbeach Women’s Lady Racer Jacket Insulted Jacket in the Twilight Zone colour shown in my photos, size Medium
• A Westbeach pair of Women’s Rendezvous Pants in the Breezer colour shown in my photos, size Medium

Total value of the contest: $420.00 CAD

Both the jacket and pants are waterproof, rated to 6,000mm..  and are coated and seam sealed.

What you have to do:

• By Sunday, November 29th at midnight Pacific Standard Time (PST), leave a comment on this blog post
• I will do a random draw (I will video tape this) of anyone who left a comment between today and the contest deadline
• The lucky winner will win the full set of Westbeach Women’s Outerwear, which I will ship to them anywhere in the world.

That’s it! Good luck. By the way… I will have some HD video from yesterday’s snowboarding up, hopefully by Wednesday!

You can follow me on Twitter… and you can also follow Whistler Blackcomb and Westbeach on Twitter as well!

What a fabulous weekend! On Saturday we headed up to NESTEA’s Chill on the Hill event at Whistler Blackcomb. Many thanks to NESTEA for sending Allan and I up there! It really was a great event. Also got to meet NetChick, GusF, and Jen! Very cool peeps! Be warned: This is a heavy photo and video post!

Check out the video. It is really fun. Includes highlights such as:
- Snowboarding in the middle of July in 35 degree Celcius weather
- Me falling on my butt on a box in the snowpark
- NESTEA girls
- Footage of The Stills performing at the event (and music)
- Full coverage of the NESTEA setup complete with volleyball court, rail jams, and blueberry mojitos!
- Whistler Blackcomb
- LIGHTNING AND THUNDERSTORMS from the weekend!

Make sure you watch till the end

Before we got started, Allan and I headed to (the best) breakfast in Whistler at Elements. We’ve been coming here for several years now and it really is awesome.

Their famous stuffed french toast… takes 20 minutes to make. This is the banana and caramelized pecans stuffed french toast. They also have ham and brie stuffed french toast! Mmmm…

The classic breakfast, bacon and eggs there. The potato tartlet and double smoked bacon are always highlights.

The hotel room that NESTEA put us up in was awesome! Hilton Whistler in a suite room! Loved the fireplace, and the fridge stocked with NESTEA, plus the welcome package!

Volleyball and microfiber towel!

The amazing event that NESTEA set up. Check out the sand they trucked in from a local quarry for the volleyball courts.

The Chill on the Hill tent, with all the wonderful people who made it all happen! Notice the sexy Olympic snowboarders, and the Burton Custom X’s they were giving away for rail jam prizes.

The rail jam they set up for the event… they brought in ridiculous amounts of snow to set this up on Whistler. CRAZY!

Boarders lining up to hit the rails. Lots of great getups.

They were some awesome snowboarders out there.

Some neat tricks.

Also loved the blueberry mojitos made with NESTEA. We drank several of these thanks to the girls!

My Malolo dude says THUMBS UP to the event!

Free open bar from NESTEA was fabulous. They served up a VIP lunch in Steeps on Whistler, and the bartender there made some amazing drinks. I loved his gin fizz with fresh local Pemberton strawberries! Mmmm!

Protest the Hero performing for the crowd. They loved it.

Allan and I also took the Peak2Peak over to Blackcomb for the glacier, including the bus, and a chairlift to get up there.

It was rocky, but not too bad. Can’t complain about boarding in July

Got the fisheye out… what a great view.

Boarding without a helmet, not a great idea, but it was so freaking hot out.

Here I am looking incredibly classy swatting away a million horse flies and mosquitoes. It was BUGGY out there! I got a few nasty bites. If you’re wondering what the hell I am doing in my sequence in the video… well, now you know. I’m so coordinated.

The Stills lead singer.

The Stills performing at the end of the event… what a great set up. A concert on the top of the hill, with the gondolas going past, hot and sunny, with a gorgeous backdrop. Amazing.

After the event we quickly changed in the car and headed into the village to one of my favourite restaurants in the whole world, Araxi.

We’ve been coming here for a few years now, and each time the service is impeccable, the food is mouth-watering, and the drinks are luscious.

We tried a couple different appetizers. Here’s the Ahi Tuna. (I don’t eat sushi/raw food but Allan said it was great). I tried the saffron cauliflower and the fresh cherry tomatoes and they were great.

Here’s the Pemberton squash blossoms stuffed with ricotta with a red pepper sauce. SO. Good. And so creative! Chef James Walt is amazing.

The cheese souffle… delicate. Loved the almonds with the mushroom cream sauce.

This BC halibut was to die for. Flavourful herbs across the top, and a delicious sauce. I added a Qualicum scallop which was amazing. (If you’re looking to buy Qualicum scallops locally, you can get them at Granville Island.)

Allan got the Trio of Pork (from Paradise Valley) which had pulled pork ravioli (so good), pork tenderloin, and slow cooked pork belly with chanterelles.

We got some side dishes… the mushrooms were reaaally good, and the beans were fresh. Love how Chef Walt gets almost all his ingredients locally. He actually lives in Pemberton.

For dessert we had the lemon tart with goat cheese ice cream. Fresh local blueberries.

We also tried the ice cream sandwich which had a lovely chocolate hazelnut crust.

After dinner we headed back to Vancouver.. it was a photographers dream and nightmare, all at the same time. We had a golden sunset, TWO rainbows, and lightning. I swear just after I snapped this photo a lightning bolt struck right between the two rainbows. Would have been the most amazing photo. I was a bit heartbroken I didn’t luck out and capture it.

How can you not fall in love with the west coast? A golden sunset through streams of rain.

We managed to catch some lightning, but I didn’t get many good photos. Check out the end of the video above for some better shots of the lightning along the sea-to-sky highway.

Phew! That’s a lot of photos! Hope you enjoyed the post

It felt good to get up bright and early, before the rest of the world really started moving around… driving up the Sea-to-Sky highway towards Whistler Blackcomb with an orange glow in the morning sky.

It felt good to get changed in the parking lot, ride the gondola and chairs up, and strap in my boots, and lay board to snow for the first time in a long time.

It also felt good to find some small powder stashes, get my blood pumping again and get the ol’ muscles moving again!

However, It felt really, really bad to put a huge dent in my rail near the end of the day. Darn!

Let’s go over this in photos.

Whistler is still pretty green as you can tell. The snowbase was at 55 cm today. It was pretty rocky but there was still some soft stuff to be found.

I brought along my backpack and all my camera gear. Trying out the GoPro Camera here again, but this time for snowboarding.

Allan fiddles with the camera.

Lots of icicles forming on the chairlift. They started looking really beautiful.

Here’s a series of shots where I find some powder:

SWOOOOOSH powder turn.

This really caught my eye in the morning. I loved how the morning sun was coming up, just touching the faces of a couple rocks on the side of the mountain… everything was blue and cold, except for the warm yellow on just a few rocks… they looked like they were waking up.

Jersey Cream was as high as we made it, we decided not to hike today. It was pretty busy, but not as busy as it could have been on Opening Day. We rode the singles line and only waited a couple minutes in line each time. Not too shabby!

Yeah, let’s not talk about this too much. So I completely dinged in my rail on a rock… my beloved board is now in the Board Room board shop getting its rail completely replaced by the awesome and ever-caring hands of Anthony, board medic. I suppose it’s a good excuse to get a new board… but I wanted to have a powder board + a groomer board. Now I just might have to go for All Mountain. Ah well, such is life! It’s a bit dumb riding around on rocks but it was so, so worth it just to ride the snow again.

On our way back, we stopped at Granville Island like we do every week and picked up some groceries. Since we were completely ravenous after a full day, I picked out some free-range beef tenderloin medallions. Marinated it in some sauce, garlic, Habaneros peppers, and Jalapeno peppers. Then seared it on all sides, and baked it in the oven. Topped it with a nice peppercorn Brandy sauce and freshly picked wild BC chanterelle mushrooms. Side dishes are fresh organic veggies and butternut squash pesto pasta.

All in all, not too bad a day! Eating steak while watching Canucks is awesome. Watching the Canucks lose to Calgary after a well-played game was pretty tough. We also got some good footage for the in-progress snowboard movie project, so I’m stoked about that. I am looking forward to getting my board back from repairs this weekend, and maybe I’ll get another chance to get up to the mountain this weekend.

Word to the Wise… if you go to Whistler this weekend… watch out for rocks.