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The sea to sky highway that runs from Vancouver to Whistler is undergoing major construction in order to be able to cope with the influx of traffic for the 2010 winter Olympics, so we had a few stops along the way, waiting for the stop sign to finally be turned and the slow to help us o our way. We arrived at Riverside RV resort, the only RV Park near whistler, and checked in for 2 nights. At $45 per night it’s not cheap, but still much more cost effective than a hotel.
We took the free shuttle bus into whistler village at about 2pm to discover that most of the mountain was closed! Talk about timing… We had arrived 2 days after the thanksgiving long weekend (when everything had been open) ad the lifts were all closed, at least half the shops were closed and even most of the activities that one might experience were closed.
So we knew we wouldn’t be there for an extended stay.
There was, however, a plus side or two. For one the village was quieter, meaning no lines for just about everything! There were also specials and sales everywhere, like the 3 course dinner for $21 at one of the nicest restaurants in town. We wanted to do something memorable, so we investigated some of the adventurous activities on offer. The best value that we could find was to go ATV-ing (4 wheel crazy motorbike things that can go in all terrain) up some mountain trails just near whistler. So the next day we walked into town, signed up for it and just had to kill an hour by doing some window shopping. The tour started by us all piling into a big van and driving to the tour company base in the forest about 15 min away. We then had to gear up – helmets, glasses, gloves etc. as it was going to get dirty!
After a brief safety and instructional talk by one of the guides we were ready to go! There were 8 of us and two guides, Jaime and I were sharing an ATV and would switch positions… And we were off, starting slowly to begin with to get a feel for it and building up speed as we got deeper into the mountain. The trail/road was rough! Big puddles and rocks everywhere, but these quad bikes just loved it! They would bounce over anything and roar through the puddles sending up muddy spray everywhere. It was an exhilarating experience. We pulled over after a while and Jaime and I swapped so she was now driving, she nearly ran us off the road in the first 30 seconds! But after that little scare she got a handle of the steering and really got stuck into it, burning through the puddles like it was no ones business. She loved it.
Our turn around point had us looking back over a valley towards the
On my second go at the wheel I really went for it, holding back then speeding up and flying down the winding mountain roads! We will definitely be doing that again sometime…
That evening we had a romantic dinner at a beautiful restaurant in the heart of
