The Brewhouse, Whistler
View, road from Whistler to Lillooet
Mountain bike trails, Whistler
Olympic rings, Whistler
At 0830 we had breakfast in a nearby coffee shop and then gathered up our possessions from the Moda Hotel and walked in drizzling rain to the main Vancouver AVIS office which was fortunately quite close by.
After a very protracted time of coping with officialdom and form signing etc we were assigned a Dodge Caravan (just as we’d had before with Budget) and commenced our journey out of Vancouver towards the Rockies.
For the first time in a week we had light rain as we headed north on highway 99 towards the ferry terminal we’d been at yesterday. We then diverted towards Squamish and then headed on towards Whistler where we stopped for lunch.
Fortunately the rain had stopped so we were able to spend two hours in this glitzy tourist town that exists purely due to its position as a central location between the two most significant ski fields in North America.
Whistler in the summer season as we found has no skiing activities going on but the town planners have been incredibly inventive by converting the ski slopes to mountain bike tracks that vary in steepness from the ‘beginner’ slope to the ‘double black diamond’ slope for the very adventurous.
Whistler town was full of tourists just wandering and taking in the scene which captivated the world for the 2010 Winter Olympics. The lower ski slopes were visible but with the rainy weather the massive peaks above us were hidden in cloud.
After visiting Whistler we travelled on towards Lillooet in the Rockies. The road was a winding and incredibly steep road for a hundred kilometres through spectacular mountain passes and around precipitous curves where the side of the road was a mere metre or so from falls into the river valley below. The vast chasm through the Rockies that we followed has been cut by glaciers countless millennia ago and now all that remains are near vertical cliffs and meandering rivers at their base.
The road through to Lillooet was affected by rocks that had fallen during the present rain storm and to add to the driving dangers, a large deer jumped out on to the road to be narrowly missed by traffic travelling in both directions.
We finally arrived in Lillooet and made arrangements to stay at the Four Pines motel which turns out to be a remarkably good place to stay in this isolated part of the world. (Lillooet is the native word for wild onion.)