With only two weeks left in my great internship at Boeing, I decided that I had to visit Whistler before I depart the Northwest. We drove up Thursday afternoon, which quickly turned to night as it gets dark around here at 4:30pm. Thus I arrived at Whistler with no idea of the views around me.
We woke up with this view from our hotel room... that's the gondola that takes you up the mountain! I couldn't see much due to the clouds, thus at this point, I felt as though this would be just another mountain with groomed snow. We jumped on the Whistler gondola and headed up.
We then hit a nice warm up run and jumped on another lift, going up even higher. As we climbed the sun started to show through the clouds more and more until we climbed above the clouds! It was breathtaking!
At this point, just look at the pictures, because my description doesn't do the view justice!
It looks like a different planet up here!
I'm on top of the world!!!
We spent most of our day snowboarding literally above the clouds on snow that hadn't been touched by anyone else this season (they just opened the lift that goes to the peak for the first time this season). I had to completely re-learn how to snowboard in all of the thick fluffy powder snow. It was so nice to cruise silently through the soft stuff... and when I fell it was like falling into a soft cold bed.
Then we had to ride all the way down to the valley. We'll just say, it's was a long way with lots of breaks. Here's a view from below the clouds with the sun lighting up Whistler Village below.
Day 2 on the mountain was perfectly clear! Here's the group in front of the Olympic mascot!
The valley on a clear day! Awesome snow, awesome view.
After an awesome weekend, I had the privilege of driving us home on a beautiful afternoon. I now see the sights that I missed on the drive up due to the darkness. We were greeted back into the county with a lovely sight to our right.
Whistler... a really amazing place to ski! 
