My friends and I planned to go to Whistler from Saturday to Monday. We rented a apartment with a loft with a kitchenette. We knew we had a kitchenette so we did some Costco shopping. We bought enough food for all of us and then some! Between all of us, we had shepherd's pie, lasagna, pizza, 2 flavours of chicken wings, a BIG box of Oreo's, chips, bagels and cream cheese, pop, salad, gummie bears, red wine, chocolate milk and ice cream (I might have missed something) for the 3 days we were there. What a feast!
We arrived on Saturday afternoon. The roads were clear so our drive was pretty easy. We settled into our apartment and relaxed for a bit. We had dinner then walked around the village for a bit.
Sunday was an activity filled day for me. My friends went snowboarding and skiing. I don't know how to do either and I didn't want to take lesson that weekend. The week before I went to Grouse Mountain and I went sno-limo'ing and snowshoeing. This weekend in Whistler I wanted to do something different. I decided to go sno tubing and then snomobiling.
My friend told me about sno tubing a few day priors to me heading to Whistler. It sounded easy and something I can do without taking lessons. I had to take the Excalibur gondola up to the first level then walk thru what seemed a like forest. It was a paved path with stairs and was about 500 feet. Then I arrived at the Coca Cola Tubing Park. There was the pay booth. You had to come up to the booth and let them know how much time you are planning to spend there. There was a choice of an hour or two hours. Of course it's a bit cheaper going for two hours. Eventhough it was cheaper, I felt an hour was sufficient. After the pay booth, you walk over to pick up your tube. It is a like big inflatable tire. There is a string attached to the tube which you have to put around your wrist. You pull the tube towards the Magic Carpet and up towards the top. At the start of the Magic Carpet, there is a person that scans your pass. The Magic Carpet is a really long people mover (like the on in Superstore but not as wide). At the top there are two levels you can go down; Blue (medium run) and Black Diamond (fast fun). There are three rows of blue and 2 rows of black. I started with a blue run. I didn't know how fast it would go. I went down and it wasn't so bad. I did the blue run three times before I headed to do the black run. I did the black run twice before I was finished.
After defrosting a bit and fueling up, I was ready for the highlight of my trip. I signed in at the snomobile office. There are about 4 companies that provide snomobile tours and the names are fairly similar. I booked it from the Whistler / Blackcomb website. Their office is right beside the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. The tour company also does ziplining. In the office, there was three of us that checked in for snomobiling and four people checked in for ziplining. Once everyone checked in, we were whisked away in a shuttle. The shuttle drove us about 10 minutes away to their location. Once we got there, there were tour guides picking up the zipliners and then our tour guide picking up the snomobilers. We went into a small building. They outfitted us with whatever we needed: gloves, helmet, googles and boots. We then walked over to the snomobiles. Our guide taught us the basics about the snomobile; how to start the engine, how to steer, and how to stop. Because it was a small group, it was easy to learn and understand. We were ready to go for our snomobile ride. We started off a bit slow to get the hang of things. The trail we went on seemed like a deserted area. There wasn't anything close by. All I see was snow and trees. We went thru the forested area and what seemed like a side of a cliff. I was just focusing on not going too fast because we had to stay a safe distance behind the snomobiler in front of us. For a portion of the trail, it seemed like we were riding along the cliff. It was quite scary for me. I had to be careful steering. If I steered it the wrong way, I could've fallen off the cliff. You were supposed to push the throttle with your thumb. After about 30mins-45 mins, my thumb was getting numb. I kept on having to stop and rest my thumb for a few seconds before starting again. By the time I got into the groove of steering my snomobile, the tour was over. I paid for a 2 hour tour. Twenty minutes was driving back and forth to the location. It was about 10-15 mins for the short lesson.The actual riding time was only about 1.5 hours.
After an activity filled day, I was ready to go back to the apartment to defrost. We made and ate some dinner. There was the Fire and Ice show in the village. The show was only on Sunday nights. It was some snowboarders and skiiers having a friendly competition. Before they did their competition, there were some fire dancers (hence the 'Fire' in the title). The competitions consists of jumps and spins. The show was about an hour long and was entertaining. We went back to the apartment and rested and watched some TV.
Monday morning we walked the village to sightsee in the snow. Some of us went to the washroom and a few of us that didn't go to the washroom decided to make a snowman. It was fun watching them make the snowman. It was nice to see 30something years olds feeling like they were young again. I saw a nice untouched patch of snow where I wanted to make a snow angel. While walking around to the area, I slipped and fell and hit my head. It hurts. I still feel the effects of the trauma to my head. I am glad I fell at the end of my trip.
