MacsTravel Blog

The Sea to Sky Highway from Vancouver to Whistler is breathtakingly beautiful with dramatic sea views to the left and the towering Coastal Mountains to the right.

Allegedly.

We drove it through rain, mist and clouds, arriving at our hotel in Whistler in need of showers and the comforts of sleeping off the ground.

The forecast was mixed for the time we were there, but there is lots to do in Whistler even when you can’t see the mountains!

Like other mountain towns, Whistler is full of expensive outdoor stores designed to separate tourists from their money. We did find a few good deals and did our part to boost the local economy.

The food was solid in general and very good at times. Special mention goes to High Mountain Brewing Company (good happy hour deals and dog friendly patio), Peaked Pies (an Aussie Canadian take on Australian style meat pies) and Purebread (an excellent bakery which is the only spot in town with a line before 8am).

We enjoyed the Nordic trails near the village and took the Lost Lake Loop with Stew, Betty and the girls (who decided to go for an impromptu swim). The beach at Lost Lake was a great spot to look for tiny Western toads lakeside and giant Bald Eagles circling above.

One must see spot is the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre, a joint venture between Squamish and Lil’wat First Nations who both claim the Whistler area as part of their unceded traditional territories. Robin and I visited along with the girls and were treated to an excellent tour led by David, a Cultural Ambassador from Squamish nation, who was entertaining and extremely informative. The building itself is beautiful and the artifacts and exhibits are inspiring and illuminating. It is a remarkable example of what a “decolonized” museum can be: a living, breathing space for reflection, learning and celebration.

Whistler boasts a number of legacies from the 2010 Winter Olympics, including Olympic Plaza, which hosts regular free concerts and movies throughout the summer. We caught “The Original Wailers” on a rainy Thursday, who played mostly hits from the Bob Marley days. The band actually should be called “Original Wailer and 4 other musicians” but that’s hard to fit on a t-shirt. The lawn was full of families, young people and Whistler workers letting off some steam. We had a “sneak peak” of two of the Wailers the night before, relaxing in the pool at our hotel while we were eating some takeout for dinner on the patio. They did not provide a preview of the show.

Robin and I decided to extend our stay one night to take advantage of the weather forecast on Friday and head up the mountain to explore some of the alpine hikes and take in the views under sunny skies. We took advantage of a special deal that booked you a buffet dinner on the top of Whistler along with the price of your lift ticket (which is close to $100 per person). So we headed up the Blackcomb lift shortly after 10:30 am to do some hiking on that mountain before taking the famous Peak to Peak gondola across to Whistler for some more wandering about before dinner. What a fun, relaxing way to spend our last day in Whistler!

The Blackcomb hiking trails were terrific, many featuring undulating ridge walks that extended far into the Alpine and towards the borders of Garibaldi Provincial Park. We took the Alpine Loop to the Lakeside Loop and Overlord Trail before backtracking to the lift, a 2 1/2 hour hike. The scenery was breathtaking with views into Garibaldi and of the Overlord glacier.

Feeling pretty pleased with ourselves we caught the Peak to Peak gondola at 2:00pm to Whistler. The Peak to Peak is a stunning engineering feat: at over 4 1/2 km it also has the worlds longest unsupported span. I’m typically not a huge fan of heights but I found this lift to be absolutely spellbinding.

As we got off the Peak to Peak on Whistler we made our way to the Peak Express chairlift and the much more frightening assent to the summit over craggy rock faces and silt-grey fields of snow. At the top awaited the Cloudraker loop and “sky bridge” (exciting for Robin, mildly terrifying for me).

The peak featured incredible views into Garibaldi and the iconic Black Tusk mountain, which we had learned about the previous day at the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre. For the Squamish people, Black Tusk was the perch for the Thunderbird; for the Lil’wat it was “the place where thunder rests”.

After exploring the peak, we checked the time and noted we had 2 1/2 hours until dinner, just enough time to fit in the High Note Hike with the Half Note route back to the Roundhouse restaurant high on the mountain where our dinner reservations were. The High Note is an awesome hike: incredible views, challenging terrain, significant elevation changes (the hike oscillates between 6000 and 7000 feet), stretches that involved scrambling over rocks…. It was a bit of a beast.

It was certainly within our abilities and experience as hikers, but not the best timing to do after an earlier, lengthy alpine hike on Blackcomb, and certainly not the hike to do when pressed for time.

The combination of significant descents and assents over 7 km of alpine and sub alpine trails and a final push to make it to our 5:30 reservation resulted in two exhausted hikers poling their way into the line to enter the buffet in the Roadhouse. We received a number of alarmed glances from fellow diners, none of whom appeared to have set foot on a hiking path while on the mountain. Aside from the notable absence of backpacks and hiking poles in the crowd, no one appeared to be red-faced, covered in dirt and sweat or gasping for oxygen.

We drank liquid and ate food. That’s about all I remember about the meal.

We woke up the next day feeling relatively rested and less sore than we anticipated. After a bit of a rocky start to the morning (dead battery in the Subaru thanks to a light being left on which could really happen to anyone-no use assigning fault) we set off to stretch our legs and grab a bite to eat before heading off to Kelowna. Robin, who had firmly rejected buying pastries at Purebread when we set out (breaking a three day streak I might add), had a relapse about 20 minutes later and we emerged from the Farmers Market clutching piping hot sausage rolls and a stick of bread. So much for resolve.

We left Whistler for Kelowna taking BC99 north through the dramatic mountain range from Pemberton over to Lillooet before turning south. The road was alternately terrific (for the driver)and terrifying (for the passenger). In addition to spectacular scenery we also ran into (almost literally) a small herd of Bighorn sheep.

We drove through what remains of the town of Lytton, the BC community that burned to the ground in 2021 days after reaching 49 degrees Celsius, the highest temperature ever recorded in Canada. It was haunting driving through the charred hillsides and intersections devoid of buildings, with only dumpsters and crosswalks hinting at the ghost of the community.

After a short drive along the TransCanada we headed south towards Merritt and the Okanagan Connector highway. Much of the road to Merritt was under construction which slowed us down enough that Robin spotted a mother bear and her cubs walking along the riverside.

The plan is to take a few days in Kelowna to visit with Stew, Betty and the girls before beginning the drive back to Ontario next week. While we are still having a wonderful time, it will be nice to be on the road home.