Whistler Day Five: The Long Road Home

The conference was over Thursday night and we were free to leave first thing Friday morning. We decided to drive home safely and hit every view point along the way.

Here's the first one we stopped at:


After a quick stop in Squamish, we headed to Shannon Falls. I've always wanted to stop here.

There's a great little lawn just off the parking lot. The kids ran around there and climbed on everything.
And I mean everything!

David even rode an elephant!

Then we strolled up to one of the falls' viewpoints. I'd love to go back and do some hiking here. It looked like there was even a trail to the Chief.


While Elisabeth was being all sweet and pose-y, David ran off (see that streak of white in the background?)



oh. There he is, climbing up the hill!

Then we headed to Murrin Park.

Where David did more climbing.

This is the lake we always pass - it runs right along the Sea to Sky.

It was very pretty there. Another place we could have spent more time at!

But we headed back to the car and drove on to Porteau Cove. Why have I never been there before? It's gorgeous!



There's a pier there. Lots of signage about the area. Did you know for instance, that there are submerged ships here which form reefs?


And a beach?

I didn't.

But we were getting hungry by this time, so we got back in the car and drove to Horseshoe Bay.

Where we enjoyed Fish and Chips at Trolls.


And a little stroll along the waterfront.

We watched three ferries come in.








And then we took Marine Drive to West Vancouver.

To one of my favorites - The Village at Park Royal. I love the atmosphere there. Also, there's Lugano Chocolatiers...and their yummy gelato!


And when we finally got home, we found that our sunflower had grown! Look at that monster!!

Whistler: Day Four

Our friend and neighbor, Lorrie, offered to take David and Elisabeth on Wednesday afternoon. We found ourselves with a free pass up the mountain, so Andrew and I decided to go back up to the peak of Whistler Mountain.

While he dropped the kids off at the Telus Conference Centre, I took pictures from the roof of our hotel.

At the gondola station I made note of how few trails were open.

On the ride up, we saw a mother bear and her cubs. I was SO glad we were safe inside the gondola!

Andrew had read that the Peak Express is a must do. So he decided we must do it. Once you've ridden the gondola up to Whistler Peak, you walk down the mountain towards one of the reservoirs. There were quite a few snowy spots, see?

That's the view back to the gondola station.

Big Red. Not the chair lift we took, but a pretty view down the mountain.


In this picture, if you know where to look, you can see the chair lift we took. It was scary.

Here we are in line. Waiting for the chairs to start moving again. They had stopped. We never found out why. I prayed and prayed like a mad woman that it wouldn't stop while we were on it. Thank God it didn't!
And we're off. I have to admit, I screamed a little as we left the station.

And then I realised just what I gotten myself into. And I closed my eyes and held on tight. YIKES.

The top. What an amazing view. Even if my legs were completely rubbery. Hah! It was exhilarating, and terrifying all at once.



The Harmony Hut route. You can follow this path and walk all the way back to where we were on Wednesday. I think it would be an amazing hike, but I'm not sure I'd want to take the chair up or down again. And the route was closed do to snow yesterday. If we could have followed the trail, we could have seen Cheakamus Lake - where we'd hiked to on Monday.

That lake is pretty much where we started from.

On the way down!


We made it down and had just enough time to make it back to the gondola and then down the mountain.





And then it was time for the gala dinner. David made a new friend.