We decided to take a road trip to Whistler for Canada Day and enjoy a couple extra days of just hanging out. The drive on the Sea to Sky highway is a favourite of mine because it's so beautiful and scenic and always reminds me of how fortunate we are to live in such a gorgeous country! We left early enough to miss any major traffic but even still the highway upgrades made for the Olympics have helped to keep traffic flowing at a reasonable pace regardless with enough 2-lane stretches and passing lanes. 
Our first stop was Porteau Cove only because I've never been there before and wanted to check out what this popular divers' spot is all about. It wasn't overly busy when we arrived but by the time we were ready to leave there wasn't a parking spot left. We got to see a couple divers coming back from their underwater adventure, someone practice flying their drone, stand up paddlers, and just a bunch of beautiful scenic nature. I can see why this is a popular place to spend the day or even camp.
The rest of the drive up was quite pleasant and we arrived in Whistler around 11:30am. Luckily our hotel room at the Hilton was ready so we checked in, dropped off our stuff and drove over to Day Lots 4/5 which are free. With it being the start of summer break and Canada Day the lots were already quite full but as we circled someone signalled a spot that was opening, so we waited a couple minutes for them to load up and grabbed the spot....sweet, free parking for 2 days! By the time we parked the Canada Day parade was getting underway so we walked over to the parade route and watched as many of the local businesses showcased themselves with their floats. The local firefighters manually pulled one of their firetrucks along the route. The village was quite busy with tourists.
At 3 o'clock the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra was giving a free performance at the Olympic Plaza so we walked around a bit after the parade, searched for new Canada gear and just enjoyed the village before refreshing our sunscreen and waters and heading over to the plaza. The concert starting with Oh Canada, how fitting, followed by about an hour of
It was nice to see that there was some snow remaining on the peaks of the mountains, though it was a lot less than normal given the extraordinarily warm winter we had. Given how hot it has been lately I'm not sure the snow packs will last very long unfortunately.
Whistler/Blackcomb has the best of both winter and summer activities. The mountain has positioned itself well to accommodate skiers in the winter months and mountain bikers and hikers in the summer months. It was quite cool to be able to hike on the same mountain at the same time as some hard-core skiers were still skiing in July!
We took the Whistler Village gondola up to the Roundhouse Lodge and then took the Peak Express chair lift up to the top of the world. The views from here were absolutely incredible with mountain ranges as far as the eye could see. We encountered a little bit of snow here, but it is melting fast! Seeing the village from atop of the world is pretty cool too. I had never been on the Peak 2 Peak before so this was something new for me. As we lined up for the gondola we noticed that the next glass bottom gondola was only a few minutes away so we decided to wait so that I could get the full experience.
The Peak 2 Peak is just an engineering wonder to me. The gondola connects Whistler and Blackcomb mountains by the world's longest free-span at 3.03km between ropeway towers and at its highest point is 436m above ground. The total length of the connection is 4.4km and the ride is only 11 minutes. What a neat experience to be that high off the ground and to be able to look below at the forest. Once at Blackcomb we took the complimentary shuttle bus to the 7th Heaven Express chairlift. But why take the chairlift up when you can hike up?
We took the Tree Line trail straight up the mountain to connect with the Lakeside Loop. The Tree Line hike/climb up took us about 20 minutes. We discovered quickly that most people don't go up this trail but rather go down it, but we don't like following what everyone else is doing. It was quite a nice hike up through the old growth forest. We heard a lot of birds and thankfully did not encounter any bears. Total distance is about 1.1km with an elevation gain of 235m and I could feel it in my breathing. At the intersection of the Tree Line Trail, Lakeside Loop and Overlord Trail we decided to take the Lakeside Loop to Blackcomb Lake. The Lakeside Loop is about 1.3km with an elevation gain of 43m. By this time the elevation change no longer phased me. It was quite neat to see and hike through all the different areas that are actually ski runs with Z pointing out numerous times where he had previously skied. 
There were plenty of wildflowers to admire and the one thing that really stuck out was just how peaceful it was up there....all you heard was nature and your footsteps...no hustle and busy of city life. It was so calming!! The views of the different mountain peaks and glaciers was truly breathtaking. The sun was sweltering so at Blackcomb Lake we made the wise decision to dunk our hats in the lake before continuing on....the sun quickly dried any moisture so we twice dunked our hats again in the glacier runoffs flowing along part of the trail. Our way back was on the Overlord Trail which took us all the way back to the Alpine Walk back to Rendezvous Lodge. The Lodge was closed for renovations and unless I head up here another summer won't see the finished project. The hiking difficulty level on these trails was moderate and if we didn't have an early dinner reservation or if the weather had been a little cooler we probably would have completed the Decker Loop too but I just didn't have the energy for that adventure. All in all it was a great day!!
We enjoyed incredible dinners at 21 Steps (just as the name suggests that's the number of steps to get up to the restaurant) and Trattoria di Umberto which capped off each of our awesome 2 days. We experienced great atmospheres at both restaurants and would highly recommend both. All in all this was a great mini vacation.
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