SUMMERIN WHISTLER
Famed ski area offers a wide range of other activities for adventure-sport enthusiasts.
Clusters of baby geese flee across Nita Lake’s mirror surface at sunrise as I teeter toward them on my maiden stand-up paddleboard voyage. Then I grab a bike and cruise the 37-mile-long Valley Trail — spotting a bear in the underbrush — en route to a first-time cliff-climbing escapade via a Via Ferrata. By the time the hot and sunny day comes to a close, I’ve also hiked a mountaintop trail between two towering walls of snow in a T-shirt and canoed Alta Lake, attempting to outwit rainbow and cutthroat trout with a fly fishing rod I just learned to cast.
In all, it tallies up to a six-sport/three-bear summer day, celebrated with the downing of a frosty pint of local Big Wolf Bitter
It’s late June and I’ve come to Whistler, 90 minutes north of Vancouver, for a long weekend of tackling experiences I’ve never tried before. I was surprised by the impressive lineup of summer things to do in a part of British Columbia that most folks equate with snowy winter landscapes and dramatic downhill ski slopes. But the truth is that 56 percent of Whistler/Blackcomb’s annual visitors arrive in summertime, when the mountains and valleys have morphed into a giant green outdoor playground with an astounding repertoire of activities from serene to extreme and everything in between.
I check in at Nita Lake Lodge at Creekside, site of Whistler’s original ski runs south of the present village. Creekside is a mellow area popular with locals, quieter than Whistler Village, which can be noisy on summer nights. The lodge is Whistler’s only lakeside hotel, and I really liked the idea of free use of their paddleboards, kayaks, canoes and bikes so I didn’t have to race around for rentals for a short paddle or ride. Then I pick up a Peak 2 Peak 360 Experience Pass that allows me unlimited access to all chairlifts and gondolas on both Whistler and Blackcomb to more cheaply access the on-mountain activities I’m about to take on.
Whistler’s transition from winter to summer officially kicks off on a long weekend in late May with three days of music, feasting and radical racing like the Crud to Mud, which launches from the summit with a ski/board ride to the snow line where mountain bikes await for the muddy descent into the valley.
Thereafter, and throughout summer, unfolds a roll call of events like free outdoor concerts from classical to electronic, art walks, brewmaster dinners, Sunday farmers’ markets and much, much more. Catering to those who like to “racecation” — travel to race — there’s the torturous Ironman Canada, GranFondo bike racing from downtown Vancouver to Whistler, Crankworx Extreme Biking, Red Bull 400, the Tenderfoot Boogie 50-mile trail run from Squamish at sea level to Whistler at 2,400 feet, and a punishing, mud-based obstacle course in September called Mudderella, reassuringly “designed by women for women.”
The true mother of all muddy obstacle courses, however, is Tough Mudder, and Whistler is hosting its fourth when I arrive. I join 12,000 other spectators at Whistler Olympic Park cheering on — gladiator-style — hundreds of Mudders slogging through a grimy, military-style labyrinth complete with a smoke-filled, tear-inducing Crybaby chamber and an Electroshock Therapy challenge.
Personally, I prefer my active vacations without subsequent chiropractor visits, and luckily there’s plenty for mere mortals like me to do, with more coming online all the time: In the cultural department, Whistler’s excellent aboriginal Squamish Lil’Wat cultural center/museum is being joined in November by the 55,000-square-foot Audain Art Museum, featuring B.C. gems like historic old First Nations masks, Emily Carr paintings and works by some of Canada’s best postwar artists.
On the flying-throughthe-air front, there’s the shiny new Sasquatch zip line, offering adrenaline-stoked whizzing at up to 60 mph for 7,000 feet from high up Blackcomb Mountain to mid-mountain Whistler, at times 600 feet above the ground. It’s the longest zip line in Canada and the S.U.
My first challenge is to tackle the Via Ferrata, literally “iron way” in Italian, a series of rebar rungs leading up nearsheer cliffs to Whistler’s peak. Clad in helmets and climbing harnesses, we first cross a small glacier, then clip into a steel cable running alongside the steps. Our small group’s guide is Eric Dumerac, whose grandfather used the first Via Ferratas in World War I when they were originally built to allow Italian military to quickly travel through the Alps to battle.
These days, weekend Via Ferrata outings are a popular family activity in Europe. “We take kids as young as 8 and they love it,” says Eric as I clamber my way up the cliff face without real danger, dazzled by the dramatic views and enjoying the rare sensation of a true climbing experience — like mountaineering on training wheels.
Once on top, I hike some of the 30 miles of high alpine trails with views of lakes and the dramatic distant pinnacle of Black Tusk in Garibaldi Park. Some routes are still lined by tall walls of melting ice and snow, and it feels strange to be wearing shorts and a T-shirt.
I finish up with the Mountain Top BBQ buffet at 6,000 feet on the .deck of Whistler’s Roundhouse. Munching ribs and roast beef, I listen to the footstomping tunes of a live band, watching the bright red Peak 2 Peak gondolas swoop from Whistler across to Blackcomb Mountain,.
The following morning starts with a peaceful, guided kayak paddle across Alta Lake before entering the narrow, winding, 3-mile-long River of Golden Dreams toward the glacial waters of Green Lake. It’s a wonderfully wild route through marshland and forest, past beaver dams, muskrat slides and families of geese and ducks, making it hard to believe bustling Whistler Village is so nearby.
By contrast, the afternoon is a two-hour exercise in adrenaline control from the moment I strap on a Darth-style helmet and padded warrior gear for a Bike Park 101 class, my first encounter with downhill mountain biking. Whistler Mountain Bike Park is a world-class lift-accessed downhill bike park with more terrain than any other in North America — more than 50 miles of trails and 4,900 vertical feet for “gravityfed” biking.
The bike park also offers rare, total-beginner training on trails that are color-rated like ski runs. Under the watchful eye of “Meesh” from Montreal, we load our bikes onto special chairlifts, learn the basics of braking and turning at mid-mountain, then wind downhill slowly around well-banked curves. I grip the handles so tightly I have to pry my fingers off at the base. Then I swallow my terror and return for a second run, looser, more relaxed, with actual moments of “awesome” creeping into what seems an alarmingly winding descent.
I save a truly unique experience for my final day — skiing a glacier in summer in a T-shirt. The glacier is open to the public for six weeks from mid-June. The only other lift-accessed summer skiing on the continent is on Mount Hood’s glacier in Oregon.
Blackcomb’s 26-acre Horstman Glacier is serviced by two T-bars. The glacier is rapidly receding, which makes its sides very steep — this fall there will be snow making on the glacier for the first time — so the final T-bar ride back onto the summit is vertically harrowing.
That evening I slip into a bathrobe and hand my body over to therapist Fabiana from Norway for an epic hour of deep-tissue massage.
Enough adrenaline for me — it’s already been a very vertical weekend.