Leg 2 of our trip was to Vancouver, B.C. It was not as smooth as we would have liked. The kids had saved up for months to buy a couple souvenirs, and were beyond excited to look for them. We stopped in Leavenworth again on the way to pick up the special hat with flowers for Kate, a toy Zac had his eye on, and of course more taffy. Everything was closed but the taffy and one little shop, where Kate claimed this hippy owl and Zachary found a little jet that was more than satisfying. Whew.
The kicker was getting stuck behind a 24 car pile-up. Our 5.5 hour road trip turned into 8.5 hours.
I had nightmares about Vancouver requiring passports of our kids. We checked online several times and knew they only needed our birth certificates, but I was still nervous and relieved when we made it through.
For some reason, we didn't consider that our phones wouldn't work in Canada. We also didn't consider how much we would need a detailed map--immediately. We had the guidebook but it was not very helpful. We stopped at a few places (including a 7-11 where our kids picked up their first slurpee) before finally scoring one.
First stop in Vancouver: Capilano Suspension Bridges. These bridges are the oldest tourist attraction in Vancouver, built in 1889. The guidebook describes is at as "450-foot cedar-plank suspension bridge that hangs 230 feet over the rushing Capilano River." We looked up pictures, etc. before deciding to visit, but none of the pictures had this many people on the bridge! It felt like a big time tourist trap. Zac was terrified the first time across, and people were pushing and jostling their way from end to end. It didn't help that we were all pretty grumpy and hungry, except for Brady, who apparently never gets grouchy.
Look at us, pretending to enjoy this!
The hungry part was solved pretty easily, and after dinner, we noticed that the park had cleared out almost completely. We liked it much more with the crowds gone.
A ranger gave the kids a clipboard with activities attached. They were all business, finding the types of trees, squirrels, and birds in the park.
We loved the Treetops Adventure, with its 650 feet of cable bridges. The kids ran from one to another.
See? Much more charming when there aren't 1,000 others on the bridge with you. Zac also got over his fear of the bridge.
Kate was never scared in the first place and marched confidently down the middle of the swinging bridge with no hands on the railing.
Look at that "rushing river".
This is the cliff walk section, where you can look straight down over the canyon.
The kids posing with their ranger badges.
We didn't have time to explore Lynn Canyon Park like we planned to because of the traffic situation, so we headed to our hotel in Surrey. It was the hotel we were dreading. Our original itinerary had us staying in Seattle the first day of our trip and heading to Vancouver a day later, but we changed it so we could make a day trip to Whistler. With that last minute choice came very few hotel options. In the end, though, the hotel was fine and had the best breakfast of any we had on our trip.
The next day was one of the best of the trip--Whistler! We drove the 2 hours to get there, and arrived just after noon. (Throughout the vacation, we arrived back to our hotel around 9 or 10pm, and the kids slept late every day.)
On this trip, I was the queen of taking pics from the car windows. This drive was spectacular!
We were excited to ride the gondolas and hike/explore the area on the mountain tops. Before heading up, I spoke with a tour guide--one specifically paid by the resort to provide information on the gondolas, hikes, etc. Because we had a later start on the day, we wanted to be sure our plans to hike would work. Twice, I went over our itinerary and specifically double checked our plans. We knew that the Peak 2 Peak gondola closed at 5pm, but the pamphlet we had as well as the information we were given by the guide assured us that the gondolas ran down both mountains until 8pm.
Zachary was nervous to ride on the gondola, but got over it quickly. The views were stunning!
On the way up, we saw all kinds of mountain bikers making their way down, and vowed that we would come back and do that someday, too.
We headed up Whistler mountain first, and took shots overlooking the lake and Olympic rings, and then took another trail to the Peak Express gondola.
Ah, open air gondola! So refreshing and beautiful!
At the top, we ate our picnic lunch. Brady claims this as his favorite moment of our trip. It was so perfect to sit with our kids and eat at the very top of the mountain.
This is also where Kate let us know that she was exhausted and needed a nap.
It was interesting to compare the lakes below. The one to the left looks like the deep blue you'd expect to see, and the ones on the right are silty and a grayish from glacier runoff, making them almost turquoise blue. Beautiful!
Famous rock formation at the Whistler Summit.
Snow was within walking distance and the kids were dying to make a snowball, but we (mistakenly) assured them we would find snow on Blackcomb mountain.
Next, we headed to the Peak 2 Peak gondola, which holds world records for the longest free span between towers at nearly 2 miles, and the highest point above the ground, at 1400 feet.
Whoo-hoo! See how far it is to the other peak? Very impressive, although not as fun to ride as the open air gondolas.
Then for the highlight: alpine hiking on top of Blackcomb mountain. Kate was falling apart at this point, and not even gelato could fix her case of grumps. Brady carried her and she slept in his arms.
Our only significant complain about these beautiful trails were the flies. It seemed like an abnormal number (think dozens swarming at a time). Kate woke up to the flies and decided they were as scary as bees, which made the next hour of hiking a lot of fun.
The flies died down, and Kate returned to her hiker self. We made up stories and cruised over to the lake, where we also hoped to find snow.
The fresh water was freezing and perfect on our tired feet.
The glacial runoff lake was silty and grayish blue, just like the lake earlier in the post.
Where there are lakes, there are rocks, and where there are rocks, we throw them.
On the way back, we patted ourselves on the back for hiking. We hadn't seen anyone in a solid hour (although at no point was the trail busy at all), and we were surprised more people were not taking advantage of the trail system.
We made up stories about mermaids, pirates, tigers, and bears.
We took pictures of the wildflowers.
We even saw a few marmots.
We decided not to add the extra mile and a half to our hike since the kids had already hiked just over 6 miles, but where we likely would have seen (and played with) snow. The kids were tired, it was 7pm, and most significantly, we were out of water. Instead, I made a comment about "taking one for the team" and skipping that section so we could get down the mountain earlier.
As we rounded the corner at the conclusion of the hike, our stomachs dropped to see the ghost town that should have been an active ski lift.
Zac immediately started to panic, saying, "Where is everyone? Why is the gondola sitting still?" We put on brave faces but walked down this hill with shaky knees.
Straight ahead is the lift we were supposed to take down the mountain. The entire lodge area was vacant. Brady ran ahead from building to building, hoping to find someone. No luck. However, by the time we made it all the way down to him, he was inside the ski lift trying to figure out the phone.
I wish I could say I kept up a confident appearance for the sake of my already-nervous son, but at this point, I could not believe I put my kids in what felt like a dangerous situation. We had only light jackets and it was already chilly. The sun was setting, and the wildlife was emerging. I was the one who talked with the tour guide and I felt very responsible for the situation. Away from the kids, I cried and prayed that we would be safe.
Brady tried again and again with different numbers on the phone but nothing worked. He tried 9-1-1, and heard that if he wanted to call, he had to dial 9. Bingo! He called again, dialing out 9 first, and spoke with mountain emergency. A little over an hour later, someone came and picked us up.
We were horribly embarrassed, but the guy driving us said it's happened before and it will happen again. He was surprised we were able to call from the ski lift area, since that should have been padlocked for the night. Thank goodness it wasn't, because we had no service on our cell phones. We did have a plan B: Brady found an emergency vehicle at the top with keys in it, and if we had to, we probably would have taken that down the mountain once we figured out there were accessible roads. We also knew we could sleep inside the crowded operations room and we would be safe there. If we had to, it was just over 6 miles down the mountain on the roads, and we could have done that, although with very tired children, no backpack for Kate, and no water.
Our hero slowed down and encouraged us to take pictures of the bobsled track from the Vancouver Olympics, told us stories of mountain biker and ski injuries he's helped people with, and informed us that Whistler is an amazing place but living here "wrecks you." He was referring to all the accidents and crashes you get as a mountain enthusiast. He plans to move back to London soon.
We made it down before it was even dark, but it was close to 9pm and the kids were starving. We found a Spaghetti Factory, where our waiter informed us that he consistently has to charge down the mountain at this time of night because of all the bears. We were relieved to not be sleeping with bears and to have pitchers of water. We ate our dinner (while Zachary slept on our laps), and headed back for a long drive to Vancouver, pulling into our hotel after 1am. The most memorable part of the evening after the mishap was Kate's bubbly personality. She was skipping, singing, and dancing around Whistler as we made our way back to the car. The whole night, we felt so grateful that our children were not stranded and cold at the top of Blackcomb Mountain.
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