On Saturday we planned to make the short trek up to Whistler and take in some mountain ranges and glorious views. When we set out in the morning, Kayla and I both thought this would be a short trip. We’d run up to the village, eat some lunch and go to the peak. I figured we’d be back in the early afternoon. It almost worked out like that.
The Whistler area will be one of the main venues for the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics. From what I read on the web, it’s a beautiful, tree covered mountain that is charming in every way. I would say it lives up to that too. The only thing that we found when we were driving up is the road construction was crazy (and this is a Central Texas resident 
talking/typing). Because of the aforementioned Olympic event, the roads had to be expanded. This made the (approximately) 120 KM trip take nearly 2 hours. We stopped in Squamish for a coffee on the way. For the last half hour, we were stuck behind a long line of cars being held up by 2 motorcycle riders. We couldn’t pass as construction limited the lanes available.
When we arrived, we found that the only way to get to Whistler Peak was to take the gondola ride. However, you couldn’t purchase just the gondola ride to Whistler Peak without getting the Peak 2 Peak ride as well (the second “peak” being Blackcomb) . All told, that would be $42 CDN a person. My inner bargain hunter winced, but I thought it would be a shame not to go (and we had driven all that way).
We had a light lunch at Earl’s Restaurant and moved the car to longer term parking so we could go buy our tickets.
As we approached the ticket counter, we were approached by a man in shorts and a t-shirt that offered us his tickets at a discounted rate. My inner bargain hunter fought with my cynical side and the bargain hunter won. He waited in line with us so we would be assured the tickets were legit. After about 10 minutes , we were headed up to the peak.
We took a ton of pictures, but suffice it to say that it was an awesome site. The weather was clear and the temperatures were in the lower 60s. Perfect for walking around on a mountain. When we finished looking around on Whistler, we decided to board the Peak 2 Peak gondola to Blackcomb Peak.
Now, I’m not especially afraid of heights, but I have to admit this ride was a
little uncomfortable. The design of the cable system is scientifically sound, I’m sure. It just looked like a tragedy waiting to happen. Maybe I tried something similar and on a smaller scale in my childhood that resulted in painful head trauma…I don’t know.
At any rate, the ride turned out fine. Blackcomb was also beautiful. Kayla played in the snow and we soon decided to start the ride back to Vancouver.
After all the walking and driving, we decided to be bums on Saturday night. We walked over to Safeway and got Chinese food from their buffet ($1.29 CDN per 100g) and a container of chocolate chip cookies. We suffered through some crappy Canadian basic cable and called it a night.
Today is our last full day here. We’re going to try to eat at “The Keg” and make it to Stanley Park before the day is done. We’ll also have to clean up the condo and pack.
The long painful adjustment to Central Daylight Time starts tomorrow.
Leave a Reply