Whistler in the Summer

We got back on Sun­day from a few days at Whistler, where we spent some days of vaca­tion with my broth­er and his fam­i­ly. While we all nev­er felt very rushed, we man­aged to get quite a few activ­i­ties in while we were there, includ­ing a gon­do­la and chair­lift trip up to the top of Whistler moun­tain, a Zip­Trek tour in the for­est above and around the Fitzsim­mons riv­er, a hike to Lost Lake, a cou­ple of movies (“Get Smart” at the local cin­e­ma, “Jumper” on DVD) and sev­er­al lunch­es and din­ners out. My niece Rena­ta also got in a cou­ple of ses­sions on the bungee tram­po­line, which helped her to bounce a cou­ple of sto­ries (at least) into the air. While I can’t doc­u­ment all of it in pic­tures and video, here are some high points (sic):

Pam was­n’t quite pre­pared for how cold it would get, but for­tu­nate­ly, there were some blan­kets avail­able at the chair­lift, about 2/3 of the way up.):

I also thought I’d include a few Zip­Trek videos. This gave me a chance to try out Flick­r’s video fea­tures. I’m not includ­ing one that I can’t seem to flip hor­i­zon­tal­ly (my Sis­ter-In-Law held her cam­era side­ways and no mat­ter what I do, includ­ing chang­ing the file and sav­ing it to a new movie, the uploaded file seems to revert to that orientation).

Here’s Pam slid­ing on the wire across the Fitzsim­mons River:

Now, from the point of view of a par­tic­i­pant. Need I add that this is a blast?

In addi­tion to the rides up in the trees (about 5 times over the riv­er and back), you get a bit of an ecol­o­gy lec­ture about the area and some tips on what you can do to be more ‘green’. I real­ly like Zip­Trek, who seem to prac­tice what they preach, in terms of an eco­log­i­cal­ly-aware busi­ness. Aside from the vans that they use to trans­port peo­ple to and from their sites (and I heard that once there are elec­tric ones or per­haps hybrids that will serve in this capac­i­ty, they’ll switch to those), they are pret­ty gen­tle on the envi­ron­ment. They even have a small water-dri­ven gen­er­a­tor via the riv­er that pro­vides most of the elec­tri­cal pow­er for the A‑Frame where they house their offices, train employ­ees, and end some of the tours. Our tour lead­ers were col­lege stu­dents major­ing in Eco-tourism and Geol­o­gy, and they made sure that none of us were ever in dan­ger or uncom­fort­able, despite what looks like an ‘extreme’ sport.

In addi­tion to some good meals togeth­er (Monks up there is very nice and beau­ti­ful to look at; Pam’s Hal­ibut dust­ed with porci­ni mush­rooms and sun-dried toma­toes was superb), Pam and I also had an excel­lent cel­e­bra­to­ry din­ner of our third Anniver­sary of com­ing to Cana­da on July 5th at Il Caminet­to , one of the restau­rants of Umber­to Menghi (his Il Gia­rdi­no and Umber­to’s are both down­town). He’s one of the three celebri­ty chefs in the White Spot com­mer­cials, (the oth­er two are Rob Fee­nie and John Bish­op) always talk­ing about ‘the sauce’. We ate a light din­ner; Pam chose a sub­tly flavoured Roast Cor­nish Game Hen atop chick­peas and mixed veg­eta­bles, and I had a sim­ple but per­fect­ly done home­made Fet­tuc­cine with cream sauce, peas and pro­sciut­to along with some excel­lent wine: A good BC Pinot Gris made by the Pen­t­age Win­ery from Ska­ha Bench in the Okana­gan, as well as an intense Ital­ian Mus­cat for dessert . I’ve become a big fan of dessert wines, and some­times pre­fer them over a cake or tart.

So for try­ing of celebri­ty chef restau­rants in the area, we are now 2 out of 3. I guess a vis­it to a Cac­tus Club would now count for Rob Fee­nie, since he has become the ‘food con­cept archi­tect’ of that chain. That’s what the arti­cles say, at any rate.

A nice time was had by all (I think), and we feel pret­ty lucky to have this beau­ti­ful resort area so near to us (for those who don’t live in Van­cou­ver, depend­ing on traf­fic and con­struc­tion on the Sea-to-Sky High­way, it’s about a 2 1/2 hour dri­ve from the city). My broth­er summed up Whistler by and large bet­ter than I could: “It’s a bit like Dis­ney­land for adults.”