Trip to Vancouver/Whistler/Seattle - Day 3 - Whistler
So we got up grudgingly in the fabulous hotel at around 6 am, which was easier due to the 3 hour time difference from Toronto (so we actually woke up at 9 am!)
We had breakfast at the makeshift lounge, as the original was unfortunately under renovation (I'd read great reviews about it being a class apart as well).
Apart from the usual fare, the thing I remember most is their 7 or 8 varieties of freshly squeezed bottled fruit and vegetable juice mixes.
After having a heavy breakfast, we packed up and started for the short and beautiful drive along the Sea to Sky highway from Vancouver to Whistler.
We hardly stopped anywhere on the way except to click a few pics of the beautiful vistas emerging in front of us, and I guess pictures would really be worth a thousand words here...
As it was just a 90 minute drive, we reached the hotel fairly early. We were staying at the Delta Marriott hotel right in the middle of Whistler village. There was a large paid parking area near the hotel (I think it was around $10 per day) so we left the rental there and checked in.
Next we walked a bit around the village on the Village Stroll and reached the center of adventure activities in the area in the main village.
We could barely hold our excitement for the upcoming adventure, but chose to utilize the available time to have lunch and zeroed in on a mexican restaurant creatively(!) called... wait for it... "The Mexican Corner". Haha, we ordered our usual favourites - enchiladas and tacos. It was good but not great, I mean I've had much, much tastier Mexican food in much more humble establishments.
Anyways, I'd forgotten my action cam at the hotel so I made a run to fetch it so we could meet our guide at the rendezvous point in time.
We had to wait about 10 minutes for her, and as soon as she came she jumped right to business. We were made to wear a heavy-ish harness and metal hook that we were supposed to carry with us all the way up to the mountain.
Once ready, we walked over to the Whistler village gondola queue, which by now had about 200 people or more waiting. The Ziptrek team had an understanding with them, so we were taken through a separate priority queue, (you should've seen the faces of all those waiting for hours!) and we boarded one of the gondola rides going up to the Whistler mountain.
The guide was a boisterous and chirpy woman who talked to us non stop through out the 2.5 hour trip. As we got the top of the Whistler peak we were taken to another gondola ride, which was the Peak 2 Peak gondola to take us to the peak of the adjacent Blackcomb mountain.
On reaching the peak of Blackcomb, we trekked down to a spot where a jeep was waiting to take us down to the jump-off area. Now was the time that we had the proverbial "butterflies" in our stomach. To make it worse our guide told us that they already had 2 walkouts for the day so far, people who'd refused to jump after reaching the spot.
Anyways, we reached the area and saw the deep valley into which we'd have to make the jump! There was a scared looking woman standing on a side who was apparently one of the walkouts of the day.
Our guide got her gear on and said she'd jump first and wait for us on the other side, so we just watched her in excitement as she took off and slithered down into oblivion. At a speed of more than 100 kmph, she was invisible within 5 seconds!
Now that it was our turn, an attendant helped both of us hook into the 2 parallel lines and position ourselves at the top of the 4 steps. By now I'd stopped thinking too much about it and was just ready to jump, but the wife was a bit hesitant at first. Both me and the attendant talked her into it and asked her to stop analyzing and just take off. I counted to 3 and we were both off!
I remember closing my eyes for the first 4 seconds and just peeping out at the trees rushing past by us, we picked up full speed almost instantly, and though I tried speaking something into the camera the rush of the wind made it impossible to hear any other sound. Those first few seconds were also the the most adrenaline pumping in the short 90 second ride, and as soon as the tress cleared we found ourselves soaring above a deep valley of lush green oaks below us.
Now the trepidation turned to pure joy as I could see mountains far to the horizon and couldn't help but compare this to a bird's flight - and how majestic it must feel to tower above such a vast expanse.
The ride ended abruptly just as one had started enjoying it, with a sudden jerk to the harness from the brakes applied by the guides at the other end.
We excitedly chatted about our experience with the guide, who now took us to another gondola from the middle of Whistler back down to the starting point.
As this was supposed to be the highlight of the Whistler trip, we didn't have much else planned besides walking around the village mall and checking out a nearby lake. We walked back to our hotel to rest for a while before proceeding to trek 3 kms to Lost lake - one of the closest and most visited lakes near the main village.
The trek was through a lush green forest that had a clear gravel path for bikes and walkers, and a forested trail for hikers only. As there was a clear sign to lookout for bears, I instinctively preferred the clear path but the wife insisted on taking the forested one, so that's what we did!
It was only later that I found out that this forest not only had the lesser dangerous black bears, but the ferocious grizzly bears as well. Luckily we didn't encounter any during our half hour trek to the lake.
The lake itself was a large, clear blue water body that reminded me of our trek to Dodital in India almost 8 years ago, which featured a similar lake though in an even more pristine environment.
We sat on a bench at the edge of the lake and spent half an hour just admiring the wilderness before trekking back to the village.
By the time we reached back we were thoroughly exhausted, still we wanted to explore the sprawling village mall.
The village was divided into 2 parts: Upper village and Lower village and we chose to start with the Upper Village trek - it was a nice pleasant walk, though the Upper village was designed more to cater to children than adults, even though there were a few restaurants/bars but nothing compared to the vibrant atmosphere below.
The Upper village had direct views to the Whistler right behind it though, so it was pretty scenic.
While walking back to the lower village, we even saw a mountain biking track where a couple of children were practising the sport, right from 5-6 year olds(!) riding on minor obstacles to teenagers jumping on more challenging tracks.
Also, we were told by our guide earlier that Whistler was famous for it's annual biking festival called "Crankworx" which was scheduled to start in 2 weeks. We could see a lot of mountain bikers around in general.
By the time we reached back to the lower village we were totally exhausted, so after discovering that some of the nicer looking patio bars in the middle of the mall had hour long wait times, we settled on a quaint little patio (highly rated) next to our hotel, called "Brickworks" public house.
We guzzled down a whole pitcher of beer along with a very satisfying delicious burger, and retired for the night recollecting the adventures of the day.
We had breakfast at the makeshift lounge, as the original was unfortunately under renovation (I'd read great reviews about it being a class apart as well).
Apart from the usual fare, the thing I remember most is their 7 or 8 varieties of freshly squeezed bottled fruit and vegetable juice mixes.
After having a heavy breakfast, we packed up and started for the short and beautiful drive along the Sea to Sky highway from Vancouver to Whistler.
We hardly stopped anywhere on the way except to click a few pics of the beautiful vistas emerging in front of us, and I guess pictures would really be worth a thousand words here...
Sea to sky highway
As it was just a 90 minute drive, we reached the hotel fairly early. We were staying at the Delta Marriott hotel right in the middle of Whistler village. There was a large paid parking area near the hotel (I think it was around $10 per day) so we left the rental there and checked in.
View from the hotel room
Next we walked a bit around the village on the Village Stroll and reached the center of adventure activities in the area in the main village.
Walking around Whistler Village
I had already made up my mind to do the Sasquatch zipline here, which was touted as the longest and highest zipline in North America. I convinced the wife to come along as well - so we registered, paid about $330 for the both of for the zipline plus Peak 2 Peak gondola package, signed an accidental death or injury waiver, and were told to return after 90 minutes.We could barely hold our excitement for the upcoming adventure, but chose to utilize the available time to have lunch and zeroed in on a mexican restaurant creatively(!) called... wait for it... "The Mexican Corner". Haha, we ordered our usual favourites - enchiladas and tacos. It was good but not great, I mean I've had much, much tastier Mexican food in much more humble establishments.
Outside the "Mexican Corner"
Anyways, I'd forgotten my action cam at the hotel so I made a run to fetch it so we could meet our guide at the rendezvous point in time.
We had to wait about 10 minutes for her, and as soon as she came she jumped right to business. We were made to wear a heavy-ish harness and metal hook that we were supposed to carry with us all the way up to the mountain.
Once ready, we walked over to the Whistler village gondola queue, which by now had about 200 people or more waiting. The Ziptrek team had an understanding with them, so we were taken through a separate priority queue, (you should've seen the faces of all those waiting for hours!) and we boarded one of the gondola rides going up to the Whistler mountain.
The guide was a boisterous and chirpy woman who talked to us non stop through out the 2.5 hour trip. As we got the top of the Whistler peak we were taken to another gondola ride, which was the Peak 2 Peak gondola to take us to the peak of the adjacent Blackcomb mountain.
On reaching the peak of Blackcomb, we trekked down to a spot where a jeep was waiting to take us down to the jump-off area. Now was the time that we had the proverbial "butterflies" in our stomach. To make it worse our guide told us that they already had 2 walkouts for the day so far, people who'd refused to jump after reaching the spot.
Anyways, we reached the area and saw the deep valley into which we'd have to make the jump! There was a scared looking woman standing on a side who was apparently one of the walkouts of the day.
Our guide got her gear on and said she'd jump first and wait for us on the other side, so we just watched her in excitement as she took off and slithered down into oblivion. At a speed of more than 100 kmph, she was invisible within 5 seconds!
Now that it was our turn, an attendant helped both of us hook into the 2 parallel lines and position ourselves at the top of the 4 steps. By now I'd stopped thinking too much about it and was just ready to jump, but the wife was a bit hesitant at first. Both me and the attendant talked her into it and asked her to stop analyzing and just take off. I counted to 3 and we were both off!
I remember closing my eyes for the first 4 seconds and just peeping out at the trees rushing past by us, we picked up full speed almost instantly, and though I tried speaking something into the camera the rush of the wind made it impossible to hear any other sound. Those first few seconds were also the the most adrenaline pumping in the short 90 second ride, and as soon as the tress cleared we found ourselves soaring above a deep valley of lush green oaks below us.
Now the trepidation turned to pure joy as I could see mountains far to the horizon and couldn't help but compare this to a bird's flight - and how majestic it must feel to tower above such a vast expanse.
The ride ended abruptly just as one had started enjoying it, with a sudden jerk to the harness from the brakes applied by the guides at the other end.
We excitedly chatted about our experience with the guide, who now took us to another gondola from the middle of Whistler back down to the starting point.
As this was supposed to be the highlight of the Whistler trip, we didn't have much else planned besides walking around the village mall and checking out a nearby lake. We walked back to our hotel to rest for a while before proceeding to trek 3 kms to Lost lake - one of the closest and most visited lakes near the main village.
The trek was through a lush green forest that had a clear gravel path for bikes and walkers, and a forested trail for hikers only. As there was a clear sign to lookout for bears, I instinctively preferred the clear path but the wife insisted on taking the forested one, so that's what we did!
It was only later that I found out that this forest not only had the lesser dangerous black bears, but the ferocious grizzly bears as well. Luckily we didn't encounter any during our half hour trek to the lake.
The lake itself was a large, clear blue water body that reminded me of our trek to Dodital in India almost 8 years ago, which featured a similar lake though in an even more pristine environment.
Lost Lake - 3 kms from Whistler
We sat on a bench at the edge of the lake and spent half an hour just admiring the wilderness before trekking back to the village.
By the time we reached back we were thoroughly exhausted, still we wanted to explore the sprawling village mall.
The village was divided into 2 parts: Upper village and Lower village and we chose to start with the Upper Village trek - it was a nice pleasant walk, though the Upper village was designed more to cater to children than adults, even though there were a few restaurants/bars but nothing compared to the vibrant atmosphere below.
The Upper village had direct views to the Whistler right behind it though, so it was pretty scenic.
Walking around the village
While walking back to the lower village, we even saw a mountain biking track where a couple of children were practising the sport, right from 5-6 year olds(!) riding on minor obstacles to teenagers jumping on more challenging tracks.
Also, we were told by our guide earlier that Whistler was famous for it's annual biking festival called "Crankworx" which was scheduled to start in 2 weeks. We could see a lot of mountain bikers around in general.
By the time we reached back to the lower village we were totally exhausted, so after discovering that some of the nicer looking patio bars in the middle of the mall had hour long wait times, we settled on a quaint little patio (highly rated) next to our hotel, called "Brickworks" public house.
We guzzled down a whole pitcher of beer along with a very satisfying delicious burger, and retired for the night recollecting the adventures of the day.
Comments
Post a Comment