Traveling, writing, and living around the world
Don’t think that the fun and adventures of Whistler, British Columbia, melt with the snow at the end of winter. North America’s largest and best ski resort, Whistler is a playground all-year round for the outdoor enthusiasts in all of us. In fact, Whistler turns up the heat come summer, with spectacular hiking, unrivaled mountain biking trails, music festivals to dance your heart out to, and water sports to carry you over from one season to another.
After a day of exploring – or semi-exploring – Whistler Mountain, and another day spent zip lining through a snowstorm, I decided to take on Blackcomb Mountain, which is said to be somewhat trickier to navigate than Whistler.
At nearly 7,500 feet, Blackcomb Mountain is the higher of the two peaks. It offers more than 100 trails (as does Whistler), though roughly 30 percent of its trails are catered toward those at an advanced level; that being said, it’s still ripe with plenty of greens and easy, wide blue trails across the mountain.
It sounded like someone was throwing boulders at my window. The morning was dark and dreary, and the rain pounded against the glass. I checked the weather and saw that it was 2 degrees (Celsius, of course), which is the kind of cold that makes you not want to leave your bed. It was 7 o’clock in the morning, and I was supposed to be going zip lining in Whistler at noon.
Truthfully speaking, I couldn’t think of anything worse than zip lining in such weather. Part of me desperately wanted to cancel, and the other part of me knew that this was par for the course with traveling: The weather is always going to be incredibly unpredictable, and you need to decide what’s worth it and how to make the most of where you are.
I still remember when I learned to ski in the fourth grade at Hidden Valley Mountain in Pennsylvania. My instructor’s name was John, and I had an enormous crush on him. He signed my “report card” for me (yes, I received a report card from ski school) and drew a big diamond as well as a cow with a note that said “Cowabunga!”
I first learned about Whistler, Canada, when I was backpacking through Asia and met a group of travelers who had just spent a few years living there.
“Canada? Why would you move to Canada? It is SO cold there!” I said. They were from Australia, and it made no sense to my why they’d willingly move to such a polar opposite weather conditions. Did they even know how to operate in anything less than a mild summer day? Talk about culture shock. This sounded more like climate shock.
