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Old 3 Jun 20, 08:27 PM  
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Scruffette
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O Can-aska - Day 16 - Whistler

O Can-aska - Day 16

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Saturday 14th September 2019 - Whistler & Peak 2 Peak Gondola

We woke up to the same weather as the last couple of days – a lot of rain!

However, this was our only day in Whistler, and we had pre-booked tickets to the peak to peak gondola, so we were going to make the most of it regardless!

Our aim was to get one of the first gondolas of the day, around 10amish.

Before leaving the room, we made a reservation online tonight for 21 Steps restaurant. The only time we could get was 9pm, a bit later than we’d like for dinner, but we really liked this look of their menu.

Before any mountains could even be considered, breakfast had to be tackled first. We walked into Whistler Village where we hoped to pick up some lunch items to take up with us, but quite a few places weren’t open yet this morning. As the weather wasn’t good, we didn’t think that we’d be up the mountain too long, and could pick something up for lunch a bit later on.



Our breakfast stop for this morning was Purebread. They also have one of these in Vancouver, but we were saving it for Whistler.

I was completely spoilt for choice by the array of baked goods, particularly for my sweet tooth. It was so hard to narrow down our options, that we picked two items to share for breakfast, and two sweet treats to take up the mountain with us.







For breakfast, we had a bacon and egg brioche ($6.65) and a cheese and bacon frittata ($5.50).

For later, we chose a brownie and a brandy apple square.

I also got a hot chocolate, complete with a fancy pattern on top ($27.35 for everything, including tax).



We took our goodies with us and headed over to the gondala. The Whistler Village gondola was now closed for the season, so our only option up was the Blackcomb Village gondola.

On the way, Ollie managed to knock my still very full hot chocolate out of my hand. It went everywhere – I picked up the cup and hoped the rain would wash away the hot chocolate quickly. He was very apologetic, but I didn’t mind too much – I just made him promise to buy me another later on.

I’d pre-booked our tickets in advance, as I heard there could be queues on some days. On a grey day like today, this wouldn’t have been an issue!





We were soon on our way up in our gondola. Visibility was a bit limited –



On the way up, we tucked into our breakfast Purebread goodies. The bacon and egg brioche was delicious, if a little messy. The frittata was ok, but I’m not sure something where the main ingredient is egg works well cold.

Once at the top of Blackomb Mountain, we headed to the Peak 2 Peak gondola, to take us over to Whistler Mountain. Not all of the gondolas have a glass bottom, but we only had to wait for a few to pass until we were on one.






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I was impressed by the size of the free span of the cable of the gondola – the only pylons were very close to the stations. The gondola path contoured the mountains quite closely.



On the journey over to Whistler Mountain, one of the other passengers in our gondola noticed a black bear. We missed it, but never wanting to miss out on the chance to see a bear, we decided to ride the Peak 2 Peak gondola back to Blackcomb Mountain.





It then meant another journey back to Whistler Mountain. We didn’t manage to glimpse the bear, but we definitely got our use out of the Peak 2 Peak tickets! All the journeys were in a glass bottom gondola, as there weren’t any other passengers waiting.

Our plan had been to take the Peak express chair up to the Top of the World Summit, to the Cloudraker Skybridge. With the rubbish weather, limited visibility and lack of people around today, the express chair wasn’t up and running. We spoke to one of the staff, who said they’d make the call around 12pm.

It was just after 11am, so we spent some time admiring what view we could see through the clouds.















We might have not seen a bear earlier, but we met this friend –





It was also really chilly, so we passed some of the time indoors in the Roundhouse Lodge. We tucked into our snack – I could taste the brandy!



Just after 12pm we checked in with one of the staff again – he didn’t remember us from earlier, so we had an identical conversation with him! It looked like they weren’t going to open the express chair today, but he did recommend the walk up. He told us we’d be able to do the walk up quicker than the advertised time. We had sensible walking shoes on and waterproofs – but the visibility was poor. It was chilly out, but thought we’d warm up as we walked. Although it was September, they thought their first snow would be in a week or so.
We made the decision to do the walk up – thinking we’d do the first part up to the cloud base, and then evaluate a bit later.

From the roundhouse lodge, we walked up Pika’s Traverse Road which gave views over Harmony Lake and the snowmaking reservoir. When we got to the end of this path and checked a map, we’d realised we’d walked this section much quicker than the 60 minute advertised time. Visibility hadn’t gotten any worse, and we thought that we might as well carry on by this point! I knew we’d regret it if we didn’t reach the top.







From here, we turned right onto Matthew’s Traverse Road, walking around the Glacier Bowl and Saddle, to the top of the world summit. The total journey was around 1100 feet of elevation. Not a bad walk usually, just made trickier in the conditions.

We only passed the couple of people on our journey, all in the opposite direction!

I was really pleased when we made it. It was around 1.15pm, so we made good time considering. The Cloudraker Skybridge is supposed to offer amazing views all the way down the mountain.





I can neither confirm nor deny this, due to the cloud! However, it probably made walking over the bridge less scary than usual, as I was completely oblivious to what was below me!







The wind was really fierce at this point and then it started hailing as well!

We also took in the Raven’s Eye Viewpoint. Normally this would be rammed on a nice day.





I was really pleased we decided to head up to the top of the mountain – it was certainly a memorable experience

After about 25 minutes up the top we started our descent – I was quite chilly and, for the second time this trip, really wish I had brought gloves with me!





The journey down was a bit quicker, but the rain was quite heavy. Part way down we cracked into the brownie from Purebread. I don’t know if it was because I was cold and hungry, but I put this up there as one of my favourite ever brownies! (No photos as I couldn’t feel my hands at this point).

We were back down by around 2.20pm.

Before we headed back over to Blackcomb Mountain, Ollie wanted to check out the Peak 2 Peak mechanisms on the viewing platform. I let him have 10 minutes of admiration before I insisted we carried on!





It was then our 4th Peak 2 Peak gondala journey of the day. I stood up for this journey, as sitting down in my soaked through trousers was not fun!







It was then straight down the Blackcomb gondola – at least we didn’t have to wait for anything today!

Once back down in the village, our priority was food! The first stop was a replacement for my lost hot chocolate earlier. This time, we popped into Blenz, voted the best hot chocolate in Whistler (yes, there is an award for that). $5.57 inc tax.

There’s a good reason for this accolade – it was delicious! This did a good job of warming me up and I drank this very quickly.

Our plan was to pick up some burgers, but Ollie couldn’t last that long without a snack (in fairness, it was 3.40pm and we hadn’t had lunch yet!)

In Peaked Pies, Ollie picked up a steak and pepper pie ($8.25). Although I didn’t get one, I did eye up the butter chicken pie – if it works on a pizza, I’m sure it would work in a pie!



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Old 3 Jun 20, 08:29 PM  
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Scruffette
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Splitz Grill was our lunch spot of choice. I chose a classic Splitz burger ($8.50) in a classic bun with added blue cheese ($2). Ollie went for a Canadian Lamb burger ($9.25) in a sesame bun, adding blue cheese ($2) and sautéed onions ($1.25). All the burgers were cooked fresh, although they forget Ollie's onions.







We took the burgers back to the hotel, quickly changed out of our soaked clothes and into the robes in our room, and ate burgers in bed!

It was about 4.15pm by the time we were tucking into these burgers, they went down well, even if they were a little cold by this point.

Once I had thawed out a bit, I had the warmest shower ever and then started the inevitable task of packing. It appeared that most things were fitting in our cases fine, but I suppose we hadn’t bought nearly as much as we do on a Florida trip (we definitely had case weight issues on our way back from our honeymoon). Eventually, I realised that lots of things couldn’t be packed until the morning (all of our layers and shoes from today were soaked and were left next to the radiator to try and dry them). We decided to give up on packing for now, and sort it out in the morning.

As our dinner reservation was quite late, it gave us some time to have a browse in some of the shops. Fortunately, reception had some large umbrellas that we borrowed for our walk into the village. Of course, we had to pick up a magnet in one of the shops ($5.99). Ollie also got a tshirt in a shop called Cool as a Moose for $29.99.

It was soon time for our dinner at 21 Steps – I did count the stairs on the way up to the restaurant to make sure! It was pretty busy in here, but this didn’t impact the service.

As it was the last night, it would have been rude not to have a drink with dinner (not that we need an excuse). I had a glass of Riesling ($9.50) and Ollie had a Red Roof apple cider ($8).



We decided to split two starters to begin with. We had amazing fried chicken the first night in Canada, so it seemed right to have some again on our last night – Buttermilk Fried Chicken - with grainy Dijon ranch and honey - $13. I don’t know if it’s a Canadian thing to serve fried chicken with honey, but I really liked this combination.



We also shared a Puff pastry caprese - warm bocconcini mozzarella blend baked in pastry topped with baby heirloom tomato, arugula, basil and raspberry balsamic - $15. Adding pastry to cheese is never going to be a bad thing!



We debated sharing two mains, but both really fancied the sound of their signature pasta dish – Smoked chicken pasta - house smoked chicken breast in a roasted red pepper and garlic cream sauce. Garnished with parmesan - $21.50. It’s not often that you get smoked chicken, but it really worked with such a creamy sauce.



Overall, we had a really nice meal here and it was a lovely way to spend our final evening in Canada.

We declined dessert (I’ll pretend that it was because we’d been spoilt with our Purebread treats earlier, rather than because Cows ice cream was closed) and made our way back to the hotel, trying to pretend that we weren’t going home tomorrow.

Day 17 - Whistler & Travel home

Edited at 08:08 PM.
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Old 8 Jun 20, 10:44 PM  
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So many fabulous photos and food too.
The day before you head home is never a good one, by keeping so busy and seeing such spectacular sights you have kept the magic of Canada going until the very end - except fr the ice cream store

Another great day in spite of the weather
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Old 11 Jun 20, 07:56 PM  
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Originally Posted by walt4it View Post
So many fabulous photos and food too.
The day before you head home is never a good one, by keeping so busy and seeing such spectacular sights you have kept the magic of Canada going until the very end - except fr the ice cream store

Another great day in spite of the weather
Even with rubbish weather, Canada can still be pretty amazing!

Don't worry - more ice cream will be making an appearance soon.

Thanks for reading
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Old 14 Jun 20, 12:29 AM  
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Pity about the weather but some great photos again.
Another great day .
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