Whistler, Canada - Home of the 2010 Winter Olympics

Christmas in July!!

Last Christmas Don & Cathi traded a huge Christmas tree for a condo weekend in Whistler, and gave it to us for Christmas! How lucky are we? We were able to arrange our weekend in Whistler at the end of our visit with the Murphys, so we left Aldergrove on Saturday, July 25th, and drove up.

We had been in Whistler once before - 19 years ago when Cathi and Don got married! We had made the trip with Donna and George, and had a wonderful time, although we were only there for one night. So, we were really looking forward to visiting the area again.

It was a beautiful, warm sunny day, perfect for traveling! Don's instructions to getting through Vancouver and up to the mountains were perfect. The traffic was great, and we made a couple of stops along the way, as we usually do.

The first couple of pictures were taken along the way - the first was a spectacular view of the mountains. I discovered on this trip that I LOVE mountains!! They are so beautiful! However, I only love them in the summer - when there is no snow on them. Fortunately, we've spent a lot of time in the mountains during the past 4 weeks.


This is the view from a roadside viewing area along Hwy 99 - beautiful, snow-covered mountains!

See - I like snow - at a great distance! : )

Our next stop was at Brandywine Falls. There was a short hike into the park, and then you got to see this:

This was a different view from other waterfalls we visited - we were looking down on it!

Note the clear blue pool the water was falling into - I'm sure that it was quite cold!

This is a view of Daisy lake. The river from the waterfall flowed into this lake.

Covered bridge leading into the park.

Our condo! The living room in the Condo

Covered balcony - we spent a lot of time out there, we ate dinner on the balcony both nights that we were there.

Kitchen

Master bedroom

After we got the car unloaded and settled in, we headed off to Whistler village. The condo was conveniently located just blocks from the center of the village. Our first stop was the visitor center, where we picked up lots of information on Whistler, and made reservations for the Peak 2 Peak tram trip on Sunday. The Peak 2 Peak is a gondola ride that travels between Whistler and Blackcomb mountains, and is the longest unsupported span in the world! Don had told us about it before we left. Thanks, Don!!

We found an Irish pub, had a beer, and went through all of our information, then spent a couple of hours exploring the village. After that, we went back to the condo for dinner. Cathi had sent us off with home made pizza for dinner - yum!

As the afternoon went on, there were gathering clouds. We had a beautiful sunset, then some lightening, thunder and some rain showers. It felt pretty good, as it was about 90 degrees in Whistler on Saturday.

Sunset from the balcony

Whistler is all about the 2010 Olympics! This was taken at the bottom of Whistler Mountain as we were boarding the gondola for the trip up to the Roundhouse lodge.

View from the gondola, heading up the mountain.

This is the view from the Roundhouse Lodge. You can see that we had a spectacular day. The temp in the village was forecast to be in the high 90's on Sunday. We went up the mountain in t-shirts, and were very comfortable.

Look! We found a bear! Speaking of bears, there was lots of information on what to do if you encounter a black bear, which are very prevalent in the mountains. My favorite bit of advice was "Do NOT play dead!"

This beautifully decorated bear was located in the lodge. If you doubble click on the picture to make it bigger, you can see that there is a headline for New Zealand!

We took the open chair lift to the peak of Whistler, which afforded amazing 360 degree panoramic views. You can see where the chair lift leaves down in the bottom right hand corner - a short downhill walk.

Wildflowers!

And away we go! Kinda looks like a moonscape!

There were still glaciers on the mountainsides. You can see the clear blue water under this one.

At the top! You CAN see forever!

Breath-taking views! This is of Whistler Village from the top of Whistler Peak.

Here's the chair lift, coming up to the peak.

This rock formation is one of the symbols of the 2010 Olympics - it's an aboriginal Inukshuk. There were many examples of the Insukshuk around both Whistler and Blackcomb.

Lee and the Inukshuk.

We spotted this spire on the far mountains. We found out it's name, but darned if I can remember it!

Here it is again - gotta love zooming!

Loving being at the top of the mountain!

We traded pictures with a nice couple - they took a picture of us, and we took one of them!

We got a kick out of this - we think that it's used for measuring the depth of the snow, similar to the same structure that we saw at Crater Lake, except they were measuring the depth of the lake. The glaciers were just beautiful, and some of them were quite deep!

On the trail. We took the hike to the Harmony Hut Tea House, about a 30 minute walk from the peak, near Little Whistler.

Along the way, we saw lots of rock sculptures that hikers had created.

A stunning, breath-taking view!

And another one! Between the two of us, we took about a million-billion pictures! Lucky for you, we've only posted a few!

When we reached Harmony Hut, we decided to walk down to the Roundhouse Lodge to take the Peak 2 Peak trip, rather than retrace our steps and take the chair lift down. The trail lead past Little Whistler, and was pretty steep going downhill from time to time. We took it slow and easy, as it was a dirt road, with lots of loose rock - perfect for slip, slide, fall! We followed a group of 5 ladies down the mountain, one of them had white hair, and was my inspiration - I figured that if she could do it, so could I! We met up with them at the end of the trail and chatted a bit. It was 4 daughters with their mother - and she was 87 years old! Good for her!!

The Peak 2 Peak gondola arrives! We waited 15 minutes to take one of the silver gondolas, as they have glass bottoms! We wanted to see the view below us!

And there's the view through the floor!! We looked carefully for bears, but didn't see any. When we reached Blackcomb, we enjoyed a cold beer at the Rondevous Lodge. It was just beautiful looking back at Whistler, and we enjoyed our shady spot, and gazing around us.

When we left Whistler on the gondola, they took our picture! And since I'm a sucker for things like that, we had to go back and get it! Our Peak 2 Peak tickets allowed us to go back and forth as much as we wanted. On our return trip, we did NOT wait for a silver gondola, but got our own little red one!

The view from the gondola. Since we had the car to ourselves, we moved all around and got lots of shots.

Ok, here's what holds this thing up! As it's the longest unsupported span in the world, there's quite a dip in the middle! What an engineering marvel!!

Here comes another gondola. You can see the path below that they cleared to lay the cable.

And another shot

Wave to the people!

Is this gorgeous, or what??!!

Here's information on the construction of the Peak 2 Peak experience. Click on the picture to make it bigger, you should be able to read it.

More information.

On the way down Blackcomb mountain in the open air chairlift. There were closed ones as well, which I supposed would be great in a snow storm, but we liked the open ones. There were two trams down, and we ended up at the base of Blackcomb, which was about a 20 minute walk from Whistler Village. We were on the mountain for about 6 hours! And by the time we came down, it had cooled off a bit in the village.

Being good little tourists, we visted the official Olympics store, and got t-shirts (no, we didn't need them), and stainless steel water bottles for the car, with the Inukshuk symbol on them, and yes, we did need them. : )

We stopped at the grocery store and got some items for dinner to go with the potato salad that we brought from Cathi's, and had dinner on the balcony.

What an amazing two days!! We LOVED Whistler and everything about it. There is SO much to do there - we will definitely go back, and next time we'll do the zip lines!! : )

I highly recommend this trip for everyone - the beauty of the mountains are astounding - there's fishing, bike riding, hiking, swimming, and many other activities, along with fabulous restaurants. You can walk through the village and hear lots of other languages being spoken. We met a lot of Aussies working there. The weather was gorgeous! We hated to leave, but our time was up! Thanks, Cathi and Don! Merry Christmas!