Saturday, November 14, 2009

Whistler

Sitting in the airport waiting to finally go home, using YVR's lovely free internet, is a perfect time to blog. I realized as I was leaving this wonderful place this morning, that I never blogged about my day in Whistler. Shame on me. Here I go.

Last Saturday, we rented a car and set out for an adventure. It was a 2 hour drive which started on windy roads of the kind I haven't seen since Maui. Cliff on one side, drop and ocean on the other. Scarrrry. Thanks to the 2010 Olympics, this road has had a facelift. It used to be like that the whole way up, now it's a nice and easy highway (that does have railroad track like arms to close the whole road if it snows yikes). As we started our drive, we started climbing and noticed as we went along that mountainous islands started popping up in the midst of the water.
The fog was thick and the rain was falling. It was so dramatic. We stopped at a couple parks on the way, and finally tried to get a map at a great little coffee shop, Galileo Coffee on Britannia Beach. The barista told us to follow the road 5 more miles until we saw signs for Shannon Falls.

Just a few yards off the freeway lies this breathtaking site. The falls were so incredibly steep. It was really neat to see the way the water has gouged its way through the slick rock. If I was more adventurous (and coordinated) I would've wanted to climb up this thing. Yes, probably one of those death wishes, but really, it was so beautiful and perfect, but in a natural imperfect way, yeah? (Now I'm typing like a Canadian. Will stop) We hiked up to the closest point you could get to the falls at at one point I couldn't tell if the rain got thicker or if it really was just gushing from the falls. I think it was the falls. Pretty powerful. And oh so pretty.
We still had our sites set on Whistler, so we left Shannon falls and continued our climb. After about a half hour the rain turned to snow. The first snow for me this year! It was GORGEOUS! Visibility was awful, which makes me so glad I wasn't driving : P Our arrival at Whistler was a confusing one, as the village was created for pedestrians to get lost in. There was no snow on the ground and the ski season was a week or two away from starting, so there wasn't much going on. We walked around, but in hopes of not being too miserable walking in the snow/rain, we decided to DO something. In the visitor's center, we found this pretty harmless but awesome looking adventure. It's called a Tree Trek, and is put on by the same company that does ziplining in Whistler. I would've LOVED to zip again, but taking in how cold it was...I don't think it would've been smart. So we took this tree canopy walk, starting up in the forest in between the two mountains in Whistler. They have built platforms and suspension bridges in between these beautiful 800 year old trees. So we were, rather unsteadily, walking from tree to tree over sometimes drastic drops.
This was amazing. I can't express how beautiful and lush it was and the views were spectacular. Then it started snowing (it honestly felt like God was showing off at this point : P). The biggest fluffiest flakes I have ever seen. Just dumping down on these beautiful heavy old branches. And we got to be in the middle of it. It was an experience I will never forget.

At the end of our walk, we walked by the Olympic bobsled course. There were people there practicing and it was pretty cool to see/be that close to a vessel moving that fast. When we got back to the village, we were COLD. So we got Irish Coffees and fries with cheese at the Dubh Linn Pup in the Pan Pacific Whistler. Yummy. The sun was starting to set so we headed home. It was such a wonderful day.

This little trip made me realize how much I love BC. Well I knew I did, but seriously. Vancouver is a great city. I decided I could live there. But I also decided that BC is the place I would live if I could ever JUST paint. I would live out in the mountains, amongst the beautiful trees and cry everyday because it is just that beautiful. I'm happy to be finally getting home to see those I love, but I will DEFINITELY miss that mountain view out my window...

2 comments:

  1. YAY! Now can you see why I want to move to Whistler? I'm SO GLAD that you had a good time =) YAY!

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  2. I just keep looking at your pictures, they make me so happy.

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