Thanks for the Lift!

It’s always strange sleeping in a bed that isn’t your own. I always wake up crazy early (for me) but since I’m not at home, I probably should be awake anyway. The early bird gets the worm! No 16-hour sleeps for me! Moving along, let’s recap. We are in Whistler. It’s July. Okay, onward.

It’s another hot one folks. The group departed our villa before 10 AM and were zipping up the gondola shortly thereafter. We are an expedious bunch.



This gondola will bring us to the top of Whistler mountain. For those who may be unaware, there are two mountains attached to the Whistler resort: Whistler and Blackcomb. There’s even transportation between the tops of them both! But we’ll be seeing that shortly.

The inside of these little gondolas is pretty small, as you can guess, and the inside is scratched to shit from those pesky skiers and bikers.


Superhero salute, Kaitlyn-style.

After a short ride, we arrived on the top. Sheesh, what a view. This is Canada folks, no denying that!





After a pit stop, we hopped on the first available gondola that would shuttle us between the two mountains. It’s pretty sick y’all! Length of unsupported span: 1.88 MILES. And we had it all to ourselves.






Whoa! Do you see that? Follow the cables and the tree line.




Yo, we heading south.




We arrived on the other side! Mountain-hopping…no big deal.

Next up was the chairlifts. Let me tell you about chairlifts. They are awesome. I never really thought about them beyond winter activities but they are infinitely more fun in warm weather. It was like a swing-set for grown-ups.




Can you see the village down there by the lake? Ah, feel the breeze…


Almost to the bottom…but no matter, we’ll just swing back around and ride it back up. Repeat.




This is from the top of Blackcomb.

Had enough? I know, let’s just hop over to the other mountain. What do you think? (Silence) Off we go then!




That fur hat is still so sweet.


Quite clearly, we had the gondola to ourselves again.





There was a Nestea event held on Whistler mountain this particular day called, “Chill on the Hill” and Marty was psyched because Protest the Hero played a set. I didn’t watch, but let me tell you it was fairly awful and the sound echoed from each crevasse of the mountain. Blah.





We perused the gift shop for a while and I was appalled to discover the prices were far cheaper on top of the mountain than in the village. What gives?


Kaitlyn and our mutual friend, Quatchi. He is such a jokester, sitting on peoples’ heads and whatnot. Kaitlyn is not amused.

We decided to head to the real top of Whistler mountain, which involved a hike down to ride the chairlift up. I’m gonna hate that climb back up in the heat, but I’m hooked on chairlifts now, so off we go.





Reaching the top…uwaaaa is all I can say.


I’m standing on top of the world.

Okay, back down we go, only to come back up again.



Even better than coming up! It was a bit chilly (!!) so Kaitlyn was using a wool blanket.





I had met up with Marty at the bottom (he had gone to listen to that terrible band) so I rode back up with him.




I have no idea why he is making such a stupid face.

I attempted a few of my NOW FAMOUS (ha ha ha) panoramic pictures. Click for an enlarged version.




Can you spot Whistler village down there?


Wow. I’m so lucky to live here.

Marty and I wandered around a bit, taking it all in. I was looking at the chairlift randomly…



Hey wait…I think I know those people. Let me zoom in.


Yes I do! Hello family!


It kind of looks like I was photoshopped into this picture. But I wasn’t.

After a wonderfully panoramic ride down and an exhaustingly hot and sweaty walk back up from the chairlift, we met up with Matthew and then hopped back on the Peak 2 Peak gondola for a jaunt back over to Blackcomb. From there, we boarded the bus with the snowboarders to check out the glacier.






July 25: There is still snowboarding on Blackcomb mountain.




This is a good candidate for our Christmas card picture.


I call this one, “A Marty in Reflection”.






This cliff was ridiculous. People going off this cliff must have some kind of deathwish.


Marty was being a bit of a photo ho that day.



As Matthew had been ripping up and down the hill all day on his bike and we had been noshing on leftover Delisso pizza while riding the chairlifts, he stopped for burger on the glacier and a few of us ripped off to go ride the chairlift up and down again.



We spent the rest of the afternoon ripping up and down on more chairlifts before heading down the mountain 15 minutes before the gondola was to be closed. We shut it down…at least we go our money’s worth!



We were, as expected, pretty piffed-out from all the sun exposure and I received a painful burn on my chest due to the apparent ineffectiveness of my SPF 60! That sun just ate up my sunblock like a candy bar.

What a fun weekend in Whistler. Thank you to Al and Martha and their generosity for letting us stay! It was a wonderful, memorable weekend.

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