Overview: Let me start out by saying that if you ever have the opportunity to go the Whistler is a must go. Not that I have been a super world traveler at this point in my life, but I have trouble believing that there are many more places that could better be enjoyed by people who love outdoor activities.
Day 1: My brother Josh and I flew out of Albany, NY to Chicago, IL for a quick layover and then to Vancouver, BC in about 12 hours or so. All went well flying across the country and into another one on United Airlines. From there we picked up our Hertz rental which was a slick Nissan Sentra. Although it didn't have a ton of power it got the job done. Driving through Vancouver wasn't super exciting after flying all day, but once we hit route 99 it was all worth. The drive-in and of itself was worth the flight. Check out the pictures. The mountains appearing out of nowhere and every time you blinked you would see something new and was straight-up beautiful. About a two-hour drive (Including a McDonald's and grocery stop) up to Whistler resort and we were there. I checked into our room for the next couple of days and got some rest. The police car was smoked.. More of an inside joke..
Day 2: Our plan for today was to go on a longer hike up in Gibraldi National Park, more specifically a trail called Panorama Ridge. On local time we got an early start (5:00 am), stopped at Tim Hortons and hit the trailhead that was about 30 minutes from our hotel. The first two and a half hours of the hike were mainly switchbacks with a total of 3000' of elevation. Pretty good time if you ask me. From there we hit Taylor Meadows and went to what we thought was out trailhead for Panorama Ridge. Turns out it wasn't and we would spend quite a while scaling a loose rock face. Made it to the top to see a beautiful panoramic view of Gibraldi Lake which we would hike to later. Remember the part about going up to the ridge? Well, we would have to hike down that as well.. Let's just say it was the sketchiest thing I have ever done in my life. Pictures do not show nearly how steep it was and the loose rocks did not make it any easier. Needless to say, we made it down safely. On the way down we another trail to get a close up of the lake. One word, beautiful. We made some good time back to the car and eventually ended up back at our hotel to get some dinner and relax for the rest of the day.
Day 3: We were pretty sore from the day before and ended up getting gondola tickets to the top of Whistler and Blackcomb. There is also a gondola that goes in between both mountains! For all my fellow engineers reading this,the cable system spans 2.7 miles! You can do the math and there are a couple of supports, but at the end of the day, it holds a few records. There was quite a bit to do on the top of the mountain, but the coolest part was "The Top of The World" chairlift. Back in the day Whistler and Blackcomb Mountain were both in a heated rivalry to see who could have the higher ski run or something like that. As an act of rebuttal Whistler, built another chairlift to the top of another peak that will make speechless from both and engineering and view perspective.
Day 4: When we booked the trip we didn't know that July 1st is Canada day. We got a little bonus added to the trip. A few extra festivities here and there around the resort. Since I am pretty accident-prone we saved what the best part of the trip for last and that would be mountain biking. Whistler is well known for its state of the art mountain biking facility and we wanted to take advantage of it the best we could. We rented some full suspension bikes and sent it down so blue circles for the first run and went as long as we could before we felt like we were going to crash from muscle fatigue. One thing I will say is that if you take the second chairlift to the second level or whatever they call it, it is a long way down. We're talking upwards of over a half-hour. Extremely tiring.. Later on after a sick day of mountain biking, we went out and had dinner at a cool bar which I can't remember the name and then hung out at some concert to celebrate Canada day. As you can see there are not a ton of pictures due to the fact we were shredding all day.
Day 5: Last day in Canada and a long night of traveling ahead of us. Our goal for the last day was to explore some things along route 99 and then hang out in Vancouver until our red-eye flight around 10 pm on Air Canada. We hit up this Brittanica Mine which was at one time the largest or second-largest copper mine in the world. Not sure if I would recommend it. Wasn't anything spectacular. We continued our trip down through Vancouver city dropped off our car and took the metro into the city where we got lunch and rode it to the end of the line. Vancouver was quite nice even on a rainy day. A couple hours and we were 30,000' in the air on our way to Toronto and then finally to Montreal where my girlfriend picked us up after a full 24 hours of traveling since we left the resort. As a side note, Air Canada was a spectacular airline.
I hope you all enjoyed the blog and I look forward to hearing some feedback! Thanks for reading!
*Live Life Outside The Office*