The summer began after we returned back to whistler from our road trip. After picking up our stuff from joe and rose and remembering just how much crap we had, then reuniting ourselves with our bikes, we jumped straight back into work. I was back at salomon and the grocery store and Rhys was working in the golf shop at Nicklaus north golf course, one of the more prestigious courses in the area next to green lake!
First on our list of things to do when we got back to whistler was
heading up the mountain and seeing just how different it looked in the
summer time! As it was considered early in the season the first time we
headed up, not all the hiking routes we open but we hiked up and down
one of the cat tracks, checked out the abandoned t bars and walked past
the super huge snow walls, cleared to allow access to the hiking trails.
At the top of peak we were met by views across to black tusk and once
again reminded of our summer goal, to hike to the top of the peak!
In mid July, Ewan came to visit and we were given the opportunity to pretend live like tourists and do a few of the summer touristy events! Zip lining didn't really take our fancy, especially after seeing the South Park episode outlining just how 'extreme' it was. The boys instead went on a full day white water rafting trip down by squamish and made a pretty good day out of it!
We still had the car so took the opportunity to do a few more hikes around the area. Or first on the list was the Joffre lake, a 3 hour hike past 3 beautiful glacial fed lakes just a few km north of pemberton. The hike itself was fun, with a pretty steep incline and passed over a lot of loose rocks and exposed tree roots. At the end of the hike, Ewan and I braved the cold waters of the first lake, while Rhys watched..
We went down to vancouver too the night before Ewan flew out, so he could check out the city and we could drop him at the airport about 6 hours early!! On the way down to van we stopped at 'the chief' in squamish, a mammoth limestone cliff visible from the highway and very popular with rock climbers! We didn't rock climb but instead took the steep, stair filled path with some tricky scrambling sections up to the peak to enjoy the panoramic views across squamish and an impressive vertical drop beneath us.
Back in whistler we were back to work and back ticking things off our whistler summer bucket list!
We did a fair bit of cross country bike riding, Rhys a little more so than me as I am still learning to get over my fear of going fast! We rented some road bikes and went for a road ride and it felt so good to be back on the road! The only problem was the only place to ride was on the highway with all the cars so the ride wasn't as enjoyable as it could've been! A whistler summer wouldn't have been complete without a trip to the bike park either, so kitted out with his arm and leg pads, full face helmet and super suspension dh bike, Rhys hit the park! (There is a photo of him getting some air over one of the jumps below) I wasn't game enough to do it especially after a little incident I had with a small paved downhill section of the valley trail and a tree.. Or my fear in the Xc park so I was more than happy to sit this one out!
We also headed up the whistler mountain again to do another hike, this time the high note trail, which took us from peak chair on the top of whistler, around the back of the mountain to harmony and symphony areas where we hiked up to the top of flute bowl (something we had also done in the winter before boarding down the fresh un-groomed powder) and back up to the roundhouse. It was a cool hike and even cooler exploring some of the areas we recognised skiing in the winter!
There was also a mountain top BBQ during the season, basically an all you can eat BBQ up at the roundhouse overlooking the mountains! Luckily Sunday night was the seafood buffet where they had prawns, BBQ salmon and mussels..otherwise I don't think we would have made it up as I wasn't really interested in the pig on a spit or BBQ lamb.. All in all it was a fun afternoon and pretty tasty food (and ceAsars of course!)
The end crept up on us very quickly and all of a sudden there were only a few weeks left of our amazing summer. It was then that we realised there were still a few hikes on our bucket list we had to do before we headed off! The first was the short, but challenging wedgemount and of course the main player; black tusk.
We had planned to do the tusk with a few people from work but woke on the morning to lots of cloud and rain..needless to say that day was then ruined and we spent the day kind of moping around wishing we were hiking! Luckily the next weekend was a little nicer so we set off to do wedgemount. The hike was pretty short but very steep and challenging, it was pretty fun climbing and scrambling up and over rocks and tree roots. The clouds had kind of come over when we reached the top so we didn't get the best view at the top but the hike was well worth it in itself!
Then the day came, black tusk. We woke up to a foggy morning but knew it was going to clear, so we piled ourselves into jimmy for the last time and headed to the trail head. Sadly as we'd had to change our hike date so many times due to the poor weather no one from work was able to get days off, so it was just us! O well, it was what we were used to and it meant we could whinge and yell at each other when one of us started to drop off the pace!
Arriving at the trail head we realised this was a pretty popular hike! The large carpark was full and it was only 730am on a Sunday! Nevertheless we tied our laces and hit the trail. The first 7kms were through switchbacks and rainforest before we popped out at some meadows. We walked through the meadows for a while before finally gaining site of the tusk! We then started to climb up some pretty steep terrain before we reached the black tusk view point. 14km from the start, this is where most people tend to turn around and where the maintained trail ends. You can see up to the tusk and the beautiful views across the garibaldi lake but the more adventurous continue up the slippery, rocky terrain up to the very top. Obviously we were of the later and started to scramble up the slippery slopes. After a few Km's of near vertical hiking we reached a point where we had to traverse around the base of the tusk itself and up to the chimney where we could then climb to the top! After stumbling around to the base of the chute I nearly freaked out when I saw what was next. A sheer vertical black crumbly wall of rock.. Luckily there were a few people up there with us which was encouring and of course Rhys reminding me that we hadn't come this far to just turn around again! I managed to put my fears aside and commence the climb, making sure with each step that I wasn't putting my fingers of feet onto unstable rocks. The climb up wasn't that bad..until I realised we had to come back down the same way!
The view at the top though was well worth everything. It was amazing, we could see over to whistler mountain, through the valley and back over the super blue waters of garibaldi lake.
After taking in the views we commenced our descent, which wasn't as bad as I had imagined! With a bit of encouragement and assistance from Rhys I proudly made it back down to the base of the tusk. The climb back down the rocky mountainside was fun too as we kind of slid our way down the rocks. We stopped via the garibaldi lake on the way down for a much needed swim in the super cold glacial fed waters before successfully making our way back to the car park. Over 30km, 9 hours and gaining almost 1700m of elevation, it was probably the most memorable moments so far!
We spent lazy afternoons at the 'lake' swimming in the cool waters, throwing the frisby and even testing our skills on the paddle board. I even learnt to slack line, which is kind of like titght rope walking on a slitly thicker rope tied between two trees! The days were longer than we were used to back home due to daylight savings so we were able to fit everything into the day!
Work wasn't too shabby either, we had a good crew at the salomon store and I am proud to say i got pretty good at pumping up bike tyres, changing tyres and selling shoes! Toward the end of the summer the numbers in the village started to drop off so it got pret quiet in the store but it was Definitely the cruisiest, but funniest job I've had in a long time! A nice break from the stresses on site!
Rhys's work was a nice change for him too, working in a customer service role for the first time, he got to spend his days greeting the wealthy golfers and meeting all the high rollers from whistler including the general manager of Whistler Blackcomb. There were also some perks with the jobs, getting to dress up in nice Ralph Lauren attire, a uniform which was not complete without the radio headset!
Finally the day came to pile up everything in our little unit in brio and attempt to fit it all in our backpacks before hitting the road for some more adventures! The packing was a bit of a mission and more of our stuff got sent down to the reuse it centre than packed into our bags but we eventually got there!
We left whistler happy, knowing we had made the most of our summer and ready for the next adventure!
