Not Peaking Too Early
Well, as they say, the early bird catches the worm and though it wasn’t the a slimy, wriggling invertibrate we were after, we did manage to snavel ourselves some tickets to the Peak to Peak gondola today, avoiding the mammoth queues we saw later in the day. This gondola, only running on weekends at this time of year, is truly a feat of engineering. Swinging high (436m to be exact) above the valley that links the majestic Blackcomb and Whistler peaks – hence the name Peak to Peak – its cable stretches, unsupported, a whopping 4kms across the divide! As the lady in our cabin declared: “that’s quite some wire!”
Before gaining access to the Peak to Peak gondola, we first had to travel up the mountain from Whistler on a smaller gondola. A festival of gondolas. Up on Whistler Mountain, the views were trillion dollar (taking inflation into account) and we could see for miles and miles around us. Every second gondola was stacked with mountain bikes and their suitably padded-up riders, some of whom were only little tackers. From the air, you could really see the size of some of those bike jumps. They were massive and the way down on a bike sure was a steep one. After a couple of mandatory selfies and some photos of the splendour before us, we asked a passer-by if he’d mind taking a shot of the 3 of us with that heavenly backdrop. He said ‘Finally! I’ve been waiting for someone to ask me that all day! He was hilarious, shooting us from all different angles and telling us to stay still while he took a pano!
It really was an incredible experience, spanning the peaks in our roomy gondola cabin, dangling so high above the trees. With snow-covered mountain tops on one side and the magnificent fjord on the other, we hovered above a sea of pointy pines, shuffled so close together we only occasionally got to spy the oranges and yellows of the post-snow undergrowth of autumn, peeping through. It was spectacular.
It was significantly cooler up the mountain at only 11 degrees. We shuddered to think how nippy this place would be in the depths of winter.
A couple of the gondola cabins on the Peak to Peak have glass bottoms but today there was only one running. We thought it would be worth the wait so we queued with a lovely old couple from Alberta which helped while away the minutes. By the time it came around, there was quite a crowd squeezing in. I’d imagined the entire floor would be made of glass but it was just a big window in the centre of the floor. It was very cool nonetheless and gave us an even greater appreciation for how high we were suspended.
Whistler is a village set for action. Just like Queenstown in New Zealand, everyone in Whistler is up for some sort of adrenaline-fuelled adventure. There’s a veritable smorgasbord of death-defying, action-packed activities on offer and if someone isn’t wheeling a bike, carrying a skateboard, toting mountaineering gear or walking with stocks in hand, there’s a good chance they’re marauding around the mountain on a mountain bike, zooming on a zipline or bouncing from a bungee. Head-to-toe lycra or active/mountain clobber is the uniform in these parts. So…if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em! After discovering the zipline tours were all full today, we took a friend’s advice (thanks Donna!) and booked ourselves into an All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) tour. Exclusive access to remote trails, off-road terrain, Whistler backcountry…it sounded fantastic. Our guide was Colin, a Canadian; one of the few non-Australians we’d come across in Whistler. He issued us with helmets and goggles and briefed our group of 8 on how to work the ATVs. We could grab jackets if we planned to get dirty. I wasn’t planning on it. One couple -the jacket couple – took jackets. This should have been a sign.
Taking our bikes for a spin in the carpark as a practice run, I was bouncing around on mine like a kangaroo. The accelerator is triggered by your thumb and my thumb was a weapon. With Maisy as his passenger, Ross had ridden an ATV before so took to the thing like a duck to water. Feeling conscious that I may hold people up, especially if my kangaroo hops were anything to go by, I requested to please go at the back of the pack. Colin seemed to think I’d be better up front near him so he took the lead, with Ross & Maisy next and me following closely behind. The rest of the group followed us.
Now I’m not going to lie, this was not my idea of fun. The initial downhill ramp out of the carpark had me worried enough but before long, the narrow, undulating track had us leaping humongous potholes, scaling hills, swishing through puddles and bopping over sizeable tree roots. At times the path that laid before us was a rocky road, stacked with full-on boulders and large, rugged rocks sticking right up out of the ground. We couldn’t go around them. We couldn’t go under them. Oh no! We’d have to go over them. It just felt wrong (and more than a little daunting) to be driving front-on into these bloomin’ big, pointy rocks. But that’s what we did. It wasn’t exactly a smooth ride. For once in my life I was actually thankful for the ample padding on my derrière. The ATVs had power steering so it was easy to hit a big bump, loose your grip on the steering and go of the track into the scrub. Ross had no such trouble and he and Maisy seemed to be having a ball.
After a little while, I got my hopping under control and felt quietly confident that I could keep up with the pack and bounce along with the best of them. Sadly that was short-lived as jacket girl and jacket guy were HOT on my tail. Taking tailgating to a whole new level – if they’d been any closer they could’ve seen what I had for breakfast. Without warning, jacket girl revved her engine and shot out from behind me in a radical overtaking move on what was only a very narrow track. That little upstart. Should’ve known when she chose the red helmet, she meant business. In a swift and unexpected power play, jacket guy also swooped in front of yours truly in a deft overtaking manoeuvre that Wayne Gardner would’ve been proud of. Well. The ‘Jackets’ were skidding and fish-tailing, throwing up dirt and mud all over the place. Colin, who seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, was onto it and led us to a clearing where, out of nowhere, we were met with Sam, the blonde, Aussie, long-haired, genetically blessed tour guide who could’ve been a long, lost Hemsworth brother. We were separated into two groups, Sam taking the Jackets and their hooning buddies and Colin taking the 3 of us. The pressure was off.
The forest trails were absolutely gorgeous but, due to the fact that my entire body was tensed into a knot and the only thing I could concentrate on was the boulder I was about to scale, or the pothole that was about to launch me, it went largely unnoticed. We did stop at a beautiful lookout for some photo opportunities. As we were making a gradual uphill climb a substantial part of the way, it did dawn on me that what goes up, must come down. Let’s just say my brakes got a good work out and jacket man would’ve been counting his blessings he wasn’t behind me. Poor Ross was.
So, adventuring taken care of, it was time for us to leave the alpine region and head back down to Vancouver, the only peak we would visit now was peak hour. We checked in to our amazing HomeAway apartment in Kitsilano and had a scrumptious dinner at Burgoo (thanks for the tip Tazia!) The brie, white wine and honey fondue was to die for.
