Thursday, 21 June 2012

20 June Whistler to Vancouver


Our first night since Banff without the lonely honking of trains in the middle of the night (I’m sure these buggers know that there are people sleeping nearby LOL).  We packed up and went closer to the register to access the internet.  While Ros sent our latest blog Steve set up the new SPOT. A little while ago we put out SPOT (this is a GPS locater device that sends our Google Map ref.) and seems like we forgot to bring it in (or someone swiped it…. not sure).  So we now have spot set up …yay!
We went into Whistler (the location of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games).  It is quite a nice place.  Sort of like an up-market version of Banff.  Loads of ski lifts/tows and ski runs.  As the day was quite nice we got tickets for the gondola ride to the top of Whistler and then the peak to peak gondola (from Whistler to Blackcomb).  The scenery on the way up was stunning and there was still quite a bit of snow at the top. 

The ride up the mountain was 25 minutes, so plenty of time to take in the view if the valley and the village of Whistler below. The peak to peak gondola stretches over a valley and has an unsupported span of 3.02Km.  The total ride length is about 4.4Km and the gondolas travel at about 7.5m/sec (they get along).  The views across the valley are amazing. 


More snow on the other side. Sadly, all the hiking trails were closed because of the snow, but we enjoyed a hot chocolate and the views instead.

We went back down into Whistler and walked for a little bit through town (stopping for a little bit of sushi for lunch).  Whistler is quite a picturesque town with lots of boutique shops ski hire/sales outlets, trees etc.  You could easily see how this place could be full of people in the Winter time.  

We noticed (on the gondola rides) that mountain biking is a huge thing here in the Summer time.  Bikes are loaded onto the lifts with riders and they race down the ski runs (and other tracks).
We posed for pics in the Olympic Rings, then made our way on to Vancouver.

Close to Vancouver the road followed the river edge, high up on bridge supports on the side of cliff faces with great views over the bay.  We battled late afternoon traffic and road works and with the help of our dear friend Lucy (the nav sat) we arrived at BC RV resort in Burnaby, Vancouver.

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