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Oh, dear, we are on our own! Mindy left for an 8 am start at day care and Ian left around 11.30 for his midday start. We were headed for breakfast and a tree top adventure at 12.45.
Of course, without Mindy to keep us on schedule we were a little late and headed straight for the waiver and indemnity sign in and finally arrived at The Dublin Inn for breakfast at 12.10. Oops, missed that opportunity, breakfast finishes at noon. Sure we will be better next time.
So went back to the bike shop for a light breakfast and joined up with the group leader Jaye, ready for adventure. A quick bus ride and we were at the entry to the tree top adventure. The walk was also under a zip line track so we heard the screams and cheers of the zip liners as they criss-crossed overhead.
We were high among the treetops above the forest floor and trekked through a spectacular network of suspension bridges, suspended stairways, boardwalks and trails on our TreeTrek Canopy Walk. Jaye was excellent and gave us insights into the geography, geomorphology, flora and fauna of the area all interspersed with an insight into the sustainability commitments of the Whistler Community. The views were simply spectacular - it didn't matter if you looked up, down or out across the mountains, perched in lofts some 200 feet above the forest floor, sometimes in giants of the forest 800 years old, we were guaranteed of breathtaking views.
The walk was easy. But there was challenge. The lofts, steps and bridges were all anchored to living trees. As the wind swept up the mountain, the trees swayed naturally and so too did the suspension bridges and the lofts. It would have been easy to become sea sick on some of the lookouts. But we were kept busy and distracted for nearly two hours in this rainforest.
As we emerged from the trails, Jen our driver radioed through that there was a bear at turn 9 in the sliding centre. So the group took off at a great rate of knots to try and see the black bear. We did glean some amazing facts about the bears from Jaye particularly about their hibernation habits and their breeding habits. And yep, we could see him on the other side of the sliding track, again nonchalantly grazing and completely ignoring us. And just like The Aspens bear, this guy had a yellow tag in his ear.
Some interesting snippets of info: the lichen grows at a rate of 1 mm per year; can tell the difference between Hemlock and Douglas fir by shape of the top branch; logging of old growth trees is completed by helicopter which plucks the partially notched tree; Bears change their diet prior to hibernation to create a faecal plug for winter and every guide and worker we have met came to work for one winter and have stayed "forever".
Time to head back down the mountain to The Village.
No visit to The Village is complete without a stopover at the grocery store and once again ladened with goodies it was back up the hill to The Aspens.
Dinner tonight was a feast and we all suffered from food coma! Chicken Kiev, mixed veggies and potato bake followed by pancakes smothered in varying combinations of cream, caramel ice cream, banana and Mindy's choc fudge slice. Totally decadent! Mindy and Ian groaned that they don't normally have desert. Well, they made up for it tonight! Totally stuffed!
Another day in the Canadian paradise of Whistler.
Temperature: 20
Pedometer: 8192
Bear Sightings = 1
- comments
lloyd remember well we did it in the snow did you see debras finger marks in the first tree,had to prise her off it.have you done Nairn falls just nth of whistler easy walk spectacular falls.your photos bringing back memories,wish we were back there.see ya