This past weekend Bryan and I took our first solo trip together since our honeymoon…and it was fantastic! We stayed three nights at the Whistler Cascade Lodge, a short walk to the lifts, skied three days of great snow, and enjoyed plenty of good meals out. It’s amazing that we haven’t been to Whistler for three years. I had forgotten how large of a resort it is and how much is going on everyday.
Thursday night we skedaddled out of work a tad early to hit the road north. We made it without a hitch to Vancouver to catch the Michigan vs. Oregon basketball game from Cactus Club Cafe in the Park Royale neighborhood. The game did not end the way we wanted at all but we had a great dinner and were back on the road for the last 1.5 hour drive along the Sea to Sky highway to Whistler. We pulled into our hotel before 8 pm with the sun still out, unloaded the car, and then headed out for a walk around town. I had completely forgotten my hiking boots so we were scouting out ALL of the stores in town for some better footwear. We struck out on footwear (that I didn’t really want to buy anyways) but I did purchase a new and much needed helmet. We picked up breakfast supplies and ice cream from the market before calling it a night.
Friday was our first day skiing and we thought it would be the only real day with fresh snow. We had a light breakfast in our room before gearing up and getting to the gondola around 9:15 am. Friday did have good fresh snow for us, much better snow on Whistler than Blackcomb. We stayed mostly high for the powder before breaking after 1 pm for lunch at the uber busy Roundhouse Lodge on Whistler. Bryan and I had a great lunch and then took the Peak 2 Peak chair over to the top of Blackcomb to explore the other mountain for the rest of the day. We skied until the chairs closed at 4 pm before heading back to the hotel.
Hot tub, showers, a little R&R and then we set out on foot to walk over to Blackcomb’s village for a mystery shop at the Sidecut Bar at the Four Points hotel. This was a bar shop so Bryan and I had two amazing cocktails each at the bar along with some great bar snacks, the basketball games to watch, and some fun conversation with the bartenders and some guys from Toronto. We ended up spending about 3 hours at the bar before walking back to our hotel.
Saturday morning was a surprise in the best way possible; even more fresh snow and even better snow for us. We got a later start and weren’t really skiing until around 10 am but when we did we skied hard. Bryan and I started on Blackcomb, skiing the 7th Heaven chair for some amazing powder before the lift lines got to be ridiculous and we made our way to shorter lines. We stopped for an early lunch at the Glacier Creek Lodge around noon and then skied down to get back on Whistler. We went all the way up the Peak Chair to ski the mile high Peak to Creek run down to Creekside. At this point our legs were burning and we did some more laps in the trees on Whistler before again finishing up the day when the lifts stopped running.
After such a fantastic day skiing we were both pretty exhausted. We changed quickly though and walked across the street to Caramba! for their great happy hour. Bryan and I ordered everything but the olives off the happy hour menu and a “jug” of sangria, which I am pretty sure was an entire bottle of wine plus some. The calamari, chorizo, salads, flatbread, patatas bravas, meatballs were all delicious and Bryan and I left full and happy. We headed back to hot tub, tv, and slept another good slumber.
Sunday morning comes and our bodies are pretty much already done for. We take our time packing up, breakfasting in the hotel, and finally made it back out to the lifts. We had plans to do a hike up to Flute Bowl but the winds and visibility on the ridge deterred us. We did a few laps on Harmony Ridge and in Symphony Bowl before heading to the front side of Whistler for calming weather. Around 12:30 we found ourselves at the base of Creekside and decided on lunch at the Dusty’s Bar. We enjoyed a brisket sandwich and beet salad before urging our body to keep skiing. We actually very much enjoyed our last few hours skiing back to the 7th Heaven chair before skiing all the way down Blackcomb.
We changed before heading out of Whistler, making our way to another Cactus Club Cafe, this time in North Vancouver, for another mystery shop dinner. Another great meal and then the 2.5 hour drive back to Seattle in persistent rain. We were both eager to get home and finally did around 9:30 pm. Not much time to decompress after the drive but both of us so much enjoyed the trip.
Chelsea
Evolving in the Emerald City 