Time to Zip!

     For our one year wedding anniversary (June 2024), I decided that a Canada do-over was in order. The reason for this was because we had a $300 credit for Ziptrek Ecotours burning in my pocket that I needed to use. The plan was to be fairly quick about it. I had decided that if we drove up to Whistler and did the zip almost immediately, maybe I would miss the brain-cold-fuzzies (for context on this, please read Honeymoon Part 3). 

    In addition, there was no LTX this year (The timing wouldn't be right anyhow). So I didn't need to plan around that at all. We were going to completely avoid downtown Vancouver this time, which was definitely okay by Patrick since he's the one driving. I found a hotel in North Vancouver on the bay (Ocean Promenade Hotel) that looked really nice that we would stay in on Day 1, and then stay at a hotel in Whistler proper on Day 2 (Evolution Whistler). Whistler in the summer, not on a Saturday night, is actually quite cheap and definitely worth it.

    Once we reached Canada, we had one stop to make before checking into our hotel on the bay. The farmhouse on Smallville. Yeah, that's right. Smallville was filmed in Canada and they used a house right on the Canadian border with Washington for some outdoor shots, I guess. A farm next door was having a
wedding, so we sneakily used their parking and walked to the house. Obviously we didn't bother them. There was an equestrian trail next to the house where I
got a couple of shots of the windmill and where they had the "Kent Farm" sign. After that, we checked into our hotel. The weather was going to be pretty great so we were lucky. All the rooms at this hotel were pretty sweet and I loved ours. Every room had a large balcony with a view of the bay, right on the downtown street where you can walk to restaurants and such. It reminded me a lot of Alki Beach in Seattle. 

    We walked to a long boardwalk that lead into the bay, and then walked to dinner from there. We watched the sunset also, which was quite nice. The weather overnight was going to be partly cloudy, but because the beach was facing south, I wanted to give myself a chance to take photos of the milky way. Turns out it was much too bright for something like that, which was unfortunate. 

    Our reservation for the zipline wasn't until 12:30pm, so we lazily made our way up to Whistler. I was not going to have a repeat of last year where I booked ourselves like crazy and we had to rush from place to place and feel stressed. No stress allowed this time!

    We were too early to check into our hotel, so we parked at Whistler Village and walked around until it was time to check in. Patrick and I were both nervous. Neither one of us had ziplined in 10-15 years, and my zipline was babyish compared to what we were doing this time. You see, when I went to book our times, the credit didn't match up with the pricing. If I bought the Bear line, which is what we had originally booked last year (and was the "beginner" course), we would have $20 left over that we couldn't use. So I booked the Eagle course, for the "people who knew what this was all about", for $20 extra instead. We basically drove half way up Blackcomb mountain to start, and zipped our way back down to Whistler Village. Patrick hates heights, but from what he had told me about zipping in Mexico, where you have to break yourself by hand (??!!), this was going to be much better. It was still very hard to take that first step off of each platform, and even by the end I never got 100% used to it. Was it worth it? Sure. Would I ever do it again? No thank you. I have the Gopro video so that's good enough for me, thanks! lol

    We immediately went to check into our hotel after, and I specially chose this place for one reason: It had a dry sauna. That's why I loved Scandinave Spa so much. That smell of cedar while sitting in a hot, dry room was heaven. And the hotel was freaking amazing. It had a split bedroom and living room thing with a gas fireplace in the center. A massive bathroom with the biggest soaking tub I had ever seen, a really nice kitchen, and it was backed up to a forest with a balcony and a view of a mountain. I'd say the only downside was that these hotels were built for winter activities, so it had features like a heated floor (which was definitely not needed right now- it was around 78 degrees outside), but that also meant the minisplit that cooled the room only went down to 65, which wasn't nearly cold enough for sleeping. (And unfortunately, the fireplace kicked out some heat too so I couldn't even leave it on! We had to leave the balcony door open most of the night, which was certainly a risk as we were backed up to a forest, but I couldn't sleep otherwise.) I immediately jumped into the bath and soaked for a good 30 minutes and Patrick took a nap before we headed back to Whistler Village for dinner. We had made reservations at a fairly fancy Italian restaurant for our anniversary dinner called Quattro. My dinner was delicious but Patrick absolutely loved his spicy pasta. After dinner we headed back to the hotel to check out the hot tub and sauna as the sun set before heading to bed.

I have one weird story to tell and I don't think I can adequately describe what happened to us. So our car was in an underground parking garage with a gated entrance. Patrick had parked our car around a corner in the garage when we checked in. And when we came back to drive to our dinner reservation, our car was nowhere to be found. I began to panic, wondering if it had somehow been stolen, which would have been nearly impossible - it was a gated garage! We walked in, walked out, went back to the lobby, walked back out to the gate... nothing was making sense. We had no one to ask because Evolution didn't have a front desk (their sister hotel had checked us in). Turns out, the garage had two identical levels, and when we had used the elevator to go to like, P1, it was the lower level. We had parked on the "lobby level" of the garage, I guess. It was surreal, though. We thought we had entered an alternate dimension. And the time we wasted trying to figure it out almost made us late for our reservation!

We had a decision to make today: we needed to either leave early to avoid afternoon traffic on south I-5 (and in Vancouver as well), or leave late to hopefully skip all of the backup. In the end, we decided to leave late so we could spend more time in Whistler being lazy. We grabbed an easy breakfast at a nearby coffee house and took it back to our balcony to enjoy it before we checked out. We spent much of the morning shopping at Whistler Village before we headed back towards home. We caught the very tail end of Vancouver traffic, but completely skipped south I-5 traffic and made it home by 10pm. All in all, a very nice and relaxing anniversary. 

Day 3: Whistler

Day 1
Day 2
Day 2.5

Whistler & the Ironman
A few weeks before the trip, I discovered that Whistler was hosting the Ironman triathlon on the day we were to be there. Because I couldn't really change my plans, we were just going to have to deal with it. They were closing the main highway partway through the day, and using parking lots and re-routing traffic etc, it was a frustrating mess to have to deal with, but deal with we did. First thing I did was grab a shot glass from one of the many shops at Whistler Village; a cute walkable area with restaurants and hiking/skiing stores. Then I had to convince Patrick to ride up the gondola to Whistler. And then I had to convince him again to ride the other gondola (Peak2Peak) to Blackcomb mountain. He breathed through it and did just fine. So proud of him.

Once we got over to Blackcomb, we did the Alpine trail; a short and sweet hike that offered incredible views of the mountain range. After the hike, we ate at the restaurant on the peak - in which the only way to it was the gondola ride. Patrick finally got his Poutine - with shredded pork. It was actually a lot better than I imagined.



After lunch, we rode the Peak2Peak back over to Whistler, because we had one more stop to make: The Cloudraker Skybridge. Yet another suspension bridge perched on one of the tallest peaks around. It wasn't even the bridge that he was concerned about at this point, but the way we had to get up to it: not by gondola, but by chairlift. He almost backed out, but I helped him through it. Riding the chairlift was actually my favorite part. It was so calm and serene. He appreciated my support, and I appreciated his courage. 

 

The skybridge was awesome. It was a perfectly beautiful day; I always seem to have such good luck for weather on my vacations. The hike back to the lodge from the chairlift was the worst of it; it was pretty steep but we made it. It was only about 3pm at this point; the original plan was to do the vodka tasting at Bearfoot Bistro, but they didn't even open until 5:30, so I figured we might as well get our spa on first.





[Side story: We were walking back to the car to head to the spa when suddenly, out of nowhere, Patrick loses his footing. I thought he might catch himself but he didn't - he ended up falling forward, landing on his left palm, rolling over his right shoulder, and hoping back up like nothing had even happened. I'll give a 5 for a clumsy start but definitely a 10 for that recovery. It was pretty epic. He scrapped his knee and definitely bruised the bone of his thumb, but other than that he was no worse for wear.]

Scandinave Spa

stock photo, since I couldn't have my phone

I heard about this place through Evening Magazine. What made this spa special was not just the free-range access to all the pools and amenities (steam room, sauna, firepits, hammocks, etc), but the fact that no technology was allowed and there was no talking. (Patrick and I did end up having to whisper occasionally, but I never thought I would appreciate silence so much). The Spa was nestled in the woods roughly 15 minutes north of Whistler Village. This was my very first spa experience. The way they suggested we use the facility was a 10-15 minute hot soak (steam, sauna, or hot bath), a 10 second dip in the cold pool (brrr!! 55 degrees!!) and finish with 10-15 minutes of relaxation. Rinse and repeat as many times as we wanted. I wanted to try every single thing they had. My favorite one was the sauna. I love dry heat, and the smell of the wood was almost intoxicating. The only downside was the Triathlon - even though we were high above the Village, the end of the race was below us, and we constantly heard the cheers of the crowd way below. We stayed there for over 2 hours. It was really nice.

Bearfoot Bistro
Hunger finally got the best of us and we headed back down to the Village for our vodka tasting. By this point it was after 7pm and the main race was over (they had until 12am to finish) so roads were done being blocked, at least. I had planned on having dinner at the Bistro but once I saw what was inside, we backpedaled quickly. It was super fancy. Like white tablecloth fancy. We were definitely not prepared for this. So, I just asked the front desk to do the vodka tasting and we would eat elsewhere. 
So again, I heard about this activity (lol - "activity") on Evening Magazine. Here is the description on their website:

Warm up in the Ketel One Ice Room:

Come into the cold and experience an exhilarating flight of sub-zero vodka. We provide the parka. Just bring your sense of adventure.
At -32C (-25F) the Ketel One Ice Room is the world’s coldest vodka tasting room – and the only permanent sub-zero vodka room in Canada. With more than 50 vodkas from across the globe, and examples distilled from everything from rye, wheat and soya to hemp seeds, this unique Bearfoot Bistro experience is not to be missed.
Wrapped in our Arctic Expedition parkas, you’ll feel comfortable and cozy as our vodka expert explains how the intricacies of distillation and filtration affect the flavour profile of the finished product.
Taste four vodkas of your choice, and discover how the extreme environment enhances the flavour while minimizing the alcohol burn.   

Patrick was unaware of my plan and was wearing shorts that day. It was a good thing he's apparently got werewolf blood because his legs never even got cold. Our first tasting was a neutral Ketel One, either regular or Citron. Patrick and I switched off on all of them so we got to try 8 flavors in total. We tried one that smelled (but did not taste) like banana bread, one that was made from rice (I liked it, it was kind of sweet) one that was brown and had flavors reminiscent of fruitcake, an a couple more that I can't remember.  I ended up with 4-1/2 full shots of vodka on an empty stomach and I was pretty well buzzed and feeling rather good. I wanted to keep my buzz going so we quickly found a restaurant to eat dinner at so that I could order a drink.

After dinner it was back to our ugh hotel, which was still incredibly stuffy and hot. We had one more day of exploration left before our drive back home!