Peak to Peak - by far the best day yet

Intro from the tired, somewhat astonishing Jane

Wow, wow and wow.......If you ever want to have a cool, cool place to go, come to Whistler and do the Peak 2 Peak 360 Experience. An incredibly long gondola ride up the mountain, phenomenal views, glorious walks to do, incredible fun and then the breathtaking next gondola ride from peak to peak. Before that we went on a stunning tree top walk.

It was a long day with lots of walking. Whistler is an Olympic village (winter 2010) with buildings built for the very occasion. The village makes sense, kinda, but it all looks the same and is easy to get disoriented.


Anyhow, I got (legitimately) separated from the rest of the family whilst running an errand. I couldn't find them in the direction they headed when we left each other. I couldn't find the playground they ultimately headed for. After walking for 10 minutes, I could find the helpful people at the information kiosk, who told me to head back in the direction I had just come for a 10 minute walk to find the playground. They weren't there. Now what? The car. During another 10 minutes walking in the other direction again, thoughts raced through my head, what if they were driving to pick me up from my errand? We are staying 4 km a way (more walking) and I knew I couldn't remember the 9 number code to get back into the building.

Let's just say it was a mighty relief to find my family bored, hungry, tired, but still present waiting for me in the car park.

From Splendid Eliza

When the boys went up another 440 metres on a chair lift, Me (freezing) and Mum (liking her feet on solid ground) went looking around. We found a little stream so we followed it and I went to go touch it. I was still freezing but it was actually not cold but it wasn't warm either. After that we took some panorama's of the view. Please excuse the photo taking as I don't have the greatest camera

Do you like my new swimming pool?

This is the panorama I took with the mountains
in the background

This is the beautiful landscape

This is the mountain the boys were up while we
were down.

Waiting for the boys to come back...

After this we went on a gondola to get to Blackcomb and then we went on another walk.  On this walk we went on a little trail that ended up taking photos of because the view was AMAZING!

You are supposed to be able to see the gondolas but it didn't really work.

Long days need sleep, even with a cougar. No bears sadly.  :(

From Awesome David

What an absolutely glorious view from the peak of Whistler mountain (2,200m)! It was great to take the boys up in the chairlift with me and look out in all directions. There were some great short walks up the top and the boys were pretty keen to touch the snow up there.

Logan and Jonty at Whistler peak - before checking out the snow

Me and the view north from the peak

It was fun hanging in the chairlift 100m above the ground; though the wind on the facing side was quite cold and it was nice to get back into the comfort of the gondola building afterwards.

Jonty in the chairlift on the way back to the gondola

The view north from the chairlift

By: Amazing Logan

The treetop walk

We went in a van to an alpine rain forest to go on a tree top walk. When we were in the van our tour guide told us about Fitzsimmons, this man came to British Columbia and saw a river he thought that it had copper in it by the colour of it and he decided to start a mining business. After years of mining he realised that there was no copper in the water it was just glacial. He didn't want to look like a failure so he named lots of stuff after him. Now I call him failure Fitzsimmons. The trees are very tall but they are very skinny because they only have 3-4 months each year of growing time. The tree top walk is 50m of the ground and it consists of Red Cedar, Douglas fir and Hemlock trees. The walk went for 1 and 1/2 hours and we saw some amazing views and awesome lakes. The trail has had bears and cougars in the past but sadly we didn't see any. The guide also told us the regeneration of the trees. When you cut one tree down you have to plant two more, while the system is productive it has a negative side. When you cut the tree down all the plant life and animals have to leave and by the time the next tree grows the animals and plant life will be gone. All the board walks and swing bridges are made from Red Cedar from that rain forest, they only cut down the biggest trees because they want  other small trees to get sunlight so they can grow taller and bigger. While we where there the zip lines were close by and the tour guide told us that the sasquatch line is the longest in Canada and America 2.2 km long and the record for speed is 210 km per hour.
 

This is us with Whistler Mountain behind.

We were very high up.

Very high.

This is the Fitzsimmon River, the border between the two peaks

The volcanic ash soil is unstable and can land slide easily.

 From Spectacular Jonty

A Marmot. This photo is from Wikipedia.

We were coming back from the alpine walk loop on Blackcomb Mountain. Then we saw some marmots. They are the size of a cat and they look beavers and otters. They make a whistle noise and sometimes a roaring noise.