Canada Trip: Day 5

Waking up in Whistler far too early this morning to take Dohnele and Emma to the meeting point for their Sasquatch Zipline.  They went off and I headed back to The Twins; I let them sleep for another hour before waking up and checking out.  This time we left the car in the Parking Garage and took the shuttle down the mountain.  We were going to meet Dohnele at the bottom of the Blackcomb Gondola where we needed to pick up lift tickets.

Unfortunately, I got off at the wrong stop and walked all the way to the Blackcomb Lodge which was decidedly not the same location of the Blackcomb Gondola.  Sooooo, we turned around and walked all the way back across Whistler Village to the gondola.  At least after the thirty minute walk we did in fact meet up with Dohnele and Emma.

After a quick drink, cooling off, and me picking up tickets, we got on the Blackcomb Gondola and took it to Rendezvous Lodge where we decided to have lunch.  Ridiculously priced food and beer, but it was either that or eat snowballs.

Following lunch, we got on board the Peak 2 Peak Gondola which crosses Fitzsimmons Creek Valley from Blackcomb Peak and ends up on Whistler Mountain at the Roundhouse Lodge.  We took a few pictures and then hiked down to the Peak Express Chairlift.

I should have been nervous at all the "Danger" signs at the bottom of the lift.  The first half of the ride was fine, but then it got steep and the dropoff got far with nothing but jagged rocks at the bottom.  With nothing but a single bar across us, I confess I had to close my eyes for the last half of the ride.  Emma and Dohnele made fun of me when we got off the lift, but it was scary!

We hiked around a bit and took a bunch of pictures and then walked across the Cloudraker Skybridge to Raven's Eye.  Now oddly enough, this didn't both me at all, but freaked Dohnele out bad.  Even though the cables and beams that make up this infrastructure are substantial, it still shakes and sways.  The skies were clear and we got so many great pictures of all the mountains.  Eventually, we headed back across the bridge and took the Peak Express down (with eyes closed).  From there, we hiked up to the Roundhouse Lodge.

By this time we had drunk all of our water and were hot and tired.  On the way up, I had mocked the gelato stand because it was just a scoop for like ten bucks.  But now that we were passing the stand again, it was all any of us wanted.  So we enjoyed a super expensive ice cream before catching one of the last gondolas down the mountain - this time the Whistler Village Gondola to complete the loop.  Once at the bottom, we took the shuttle up to where we had the car parked and headed south out of town - returning to Vancouver for the night.

We enjoyed a beautiful sunset over Howe Sound and our gorgeous Air BnB in West Vancouver.  Picked up dinner at a local grocery store in addition to a few Canadian treats that you can only find in Canada.  The next day was drizzly and we drove all the way back to Salem!  The only real hitch was spending well over an hour at Customs.