Whistler Camp Day 1

What a day!!!! Fantanstic on all accounts. You have to watch the video below to get a true understanding of how things got started off. Here is a brief explanation of the below video.

Here at Whistler, you have to get an early start. Breakfast at 6:30 am and to the lift by 7:30am with a short shuttle from the condo to the lifts. You have to take 2 lifts, a bus ride, and one final lift to the Horstman Glacier. No problem, right??? On the first lift ride, myself and a fantastic young fella were riding the lift and having a nice morning chat. About 2/3 of the way up, we noticed a dark spec in the middle of the trail. As we got closer, the spec grew into a sizeable brown bear…. WOW!!! we both looked at each other in amazement and I pulled out my camera that is usually close at hand. As I start filming, I hear this thunk below us and start looking at all my gear to see what fell. After a moment, I turn to my lift partner and ask if he has his back pack. Hmmm, it has mysteriously disappeared. In the moment of “amazement”, he lost his grip on his bag and it lay on the slope, coincidentally, a few dozen yards from the bear. My first reaction was to say “no problem, we’ll get it”…. As I thought about what I said, I was trying to figure out just how in the heck we (I) could possibly get the bag that contained a few necessities for the day and LUNCH…. I checked in with the lift attendants at the top and told them our challenge. One fella kindly offered to go get it and then I said that, if it was ok, I would do it. ”But what about the bears”, I asked. He mentioned that they were pretty mellow and were pretty content to just eat grass. Nervously, I made my way down the slope. I took a few detours and short cuts that brought me just above where the pack fell. Luckily, the bear had cruised down the trail a bit and I was able to snatch the bag and head back up the adjacent trail. As I came to a rise, another brown spec was up ahead of me. ”Another Brown Bear???” I thought to myself. What are the chances. Soon, I realized the chances were pretty darn good. I scurried a couple trails to the north and hoped that I came out above him and could get back to the lift. The plan worked.

The blessing in disguise was that one of our young ladies, in a chatty social moment I’m sure, left here skis at the second lift junction so I was able to play clean up and get everything to the top for a FANTASTIC first day at Whistler. Check out the video below and some photos of DAY 1…