The Points Mom

Bombarded With Bears In Whistler

IMG_0653After our time in Vanouver, we spent 5 amazing days in Whistler. We stayed at the base of Whistler Mountain, in the heart of Whistler Village at the Westin Resort and Spa, Whistler.  Recall we used 12,000 Starwood Preferred Guest points per night for our one bedroom suite.

The hotel itself was very nice and modern in that ski town sort of way. However, our “suite” was a bit dated (oldish furniture, window treatments, etc) but with a modern bathroom and kitchen. It was also on the small side for a one bedroom suite. It was tight with our family of 5, but we managed, as we often do when we travel for free on hotel points.  Overall, we would definitely stay here again and possibly will this year for February break. However, I will try to accrue enough points for 2 rooms or a 2 bedroom suite, just to have more space.

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On the deck with live music and great views at the hotel.

We arrived in Whistler late afternoon on Saturday. We chilled and unpacked and then had a great dinner at the hotel restaurant Grill & Vine. The restaurant has a sleek setting and a big patio with views of Whistler Mountain. There was live music outside and the restaurant was hopping!

Sunday, our first day in Whistler, we started at the Whistler Farmer’s Market, which is actually located at the base of Blackcomb Mountain (or what is known as the upper village). The farmers market is from 11-3 every Wednesday and Sunday during the season.  We tasted our way through the farmers market but we were still hungry (of course), so we had a great lunch at Milestones, at the Blackcomb base.

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Jessie and Mason fighting on the Peak To Peak Gondola

IMG_0334We then headed up the chairlift to the peak of Blackcomb and from there rode the famous Peak To Peak gondola. We actually waited on the glass bottom gondola line (there are 2 cars with glass bottoms) as we got lucky in that the glass bottom car was four minutes away and the line was short. The Peak To Peak gondola actually connects the two peaks (really 3/4 of the way points) of Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains. It is very unique, and probably even better during the ski season! We rode the gondola from the Blackcomb peak to Whistler peak and then took the regular gondola down to Whistler Village.  We shopped and strolled there (visited STARBUCKS—-my kids’ new obsession) and headed back to the hotel to hang and swim for the rest of the afternoon. That night, we headed back up to the peak of Whistler Mountain for a mountain top barbecue. Although the views at dusk were amazing, and once again, there was live music, the food was just ok and the minute we were done eating my kids wanted to head right back down. The BBQ was expensive and I would not do it again.

We started our day Monday with the Train Wreck hike. This is a moderate 3 mile (round trip) hike to an actual train wreck.  The train crashed in the late 1950s.IMG_0398  Because the cost of cleaning up the train was too high, the five boxcars became abandoned where they derailed. Today, the train wreck is on a hiking route, in the middle of a bunch of cedar trees and sprayed with graffiti.  We really enjoyed the art and climbing on the train cars.

Later that day we ate “linner” (lunch/dinner) in a cute bistro (I can’t remember the name 🙁  ) in the village.  It was linner for us because we were scheduled to go on a bear watch from 5pm to 8pm, so we needed to plan our eating accordingly.

I always get nervous before a wild life sightseeing tour like whale watching, dolphin watching, etc and my thoughts pretty much go like this….. Will we be the only tour in the last gazillion tours that does not see anything? Will this be a waste of time and money? Will my kids be disappointed if we don’t see anything?  Well with this tour too, 20 minutes in we still had not seen a bear, and despite the fact that we had more than 2.5 hours to go, my thoughts were getting the best of me…

And then FINALLY (probably like 25 minutes in), we saw one.  It was far away and we lost it after a few minutes. THEN we hit the motherlode (literally).  We saw a mom and 3 cubs.

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The two obedient cubs

IT GETS BETTER.  The mom started moving across the field with only 2 cubs in tow. When she got to the other side with her 2 cubs, they all stood watching and waiting for the 3rd cub. The cub did not come, he was in the bushes on the other side of the field. The mom and the 2 cubs went back to the other side of the field and disappeared into the bushes and the next thing we heard was the cub crying. He was getting yelled at by his mother!!!!! After about a minute of crying, the mom and all 3 cubs proceeded back across the field. Cubs are just like kids!

After that excitement, we proceeded to see 6 more bears which included another mother and cub, a black bear that was brown, and a bear chomping away on berry bushes about 10 feet from us.  Most of the time if we were too close, we stayed in the jeep. But other times, we got out and watched. The bears seemed indifferent to us as they were very used to seeing vehicles and people on the mountain.IMG_0626 (3)

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Daniel in an actual bear den that a bear used to hibernate

I could not move on without mentioning our tour guide, Michael Allen. He has been studying the bears, that call Whistler their home, for the last 30 years.  He has names and recognizes every bear on Whistler Mountain.  I think he had insight on what spots to hit to ensure we saw bears. (We saw so many more bears than another tour out at the same time). He also took us on a short hike through the woods to an actual old bear den.  He actually visits bear dens during the winter and checks on the bears while they are hibernating.  Each kid had a turn in the den. How cool!  He has a website that gives updates as to bear sightings.  It is called Michael Allen Bear Reports. We had booked the tour through the Whistler/Blackcomb website and just got so lucky with the guide.  There are other less expensive tours we later learned, but this was the only one with access to Whistler Mountain and worth every penny.  If you book this, make sure to ask for Michael Allen.

Tuesday arrived as the day I was the most nervous about. It was the day we were scheduled to do a seaplane tour through Harbour Air SeaPlanes.  Gulp!  We headed to Green Lake, where our flight was due to depart, a 10 minute drive from Whistler village.  The lake was absolutely beautiful, one of the prettiest places I have ever seen.  We enjoyed one of our best lunches prior to our flight at Table Nineteen, the restaurant of the golf course that was situated on the lake.  (It would have been a perfect last meal 🙂  ) We then walked out to the dock for our flight. Gulp again….

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Daniel sat in the co-pilot seat for the entire flight. Very cool!

Image 48We made it! After a VERY smooth take-off from the lake, we flew for about 25 minutes high above the glaciers and glacial lakes of the Whistler Valley. The scenery was breathtaking and the turbulence sporadic. (Rob was scared during the turbulence too).  At times, it looked like we were very close to the glaciers, in fact, I thought too close, but luckily we had a very skilled co-pilot in Daniel :-), who guided us safely back and aided in a smooth landing back into the lake.  In general, both the water take off and landing were much smoother to me than on a regular runway.

IMG_0767The kids spent the afternoon hitting every level of the Treetop Adventure Ropes Course right outside of Whistler village.  They all made it through double black, the most difficult level.  On a lot of our trips, we are drawn to these ropes courses and have done them in a bunch of places like Maine and Colorado.  But this one was the best one.  It was a huge course set in the woods.  The challenges were technical and difficult but doable.  I spent my time on the ground watching them and taking pictures. I have done my share of ropes courses in the past too and have pulled a muscle almost every time.  I passed on this one.  I am getting old. 🙁

On Wednesday, we had one of our least enjoyable activities. I had booked a jet boat tour in advance.  The videos and pictures showed the jet boat speeding through the rapids, soaking and scaring passengers at the same time. Unfortunately for us, there was a drought in Whistler, the water levels were low, and the boat could not go through the rapids. It was a normal boat ride. It was boring and hot. The driver tried to make it a bit more exciting by spinning the boat a few times, but it just didn’t cut it. We later complained to the company that we wish we could have gotten a heads up about the water levels…you can imagine how that went.  I will chalk this up as a learning experience and from now on check conditions and cancel (if I can) if the tour needs to be modified due to unfavorable conditions.

IMG_0839Our afternoon picked up.  We rented bikes and biked the Whistler Valley trail.  The route we took (tried to take) was the Creekside to the Lakes route.  We hit only four of the five lakes, got lost a bunch of times, and unnecessarily went uphill for about 10 minutes (I am holding my ground that the map was flawed), but despite all of that, we had a great afternoon biking the trail amongst the beautiful mountains and lakes.

IMG_0866On Thursday, we were en route back to Vancouver for our very early flight the next morning.  We stopped at the amazing, what looks like a dive from the outside, Water Shed Grill for lunch.  The restaurant sits right on the Squamish River.  It was recommended to us by none other than the famous Michael Allen (the bear guy from above), who lives in Squamish.

But the even better stop that day was at the Squamish Via Ferrata.  I learned about these “iron paths” during my British Columbia research prior to our trip and now a new world may have just opened for my family.  Climbing a via ferrata is a mix of alpine hiking and rock climbing and the route consists of anchored cables, rungs, steps, bridges, and ladders.  They allow lesser or even inexperienced climbers (like us) to face otherwise dangerous—but incredibly scenic—routes.  Like rock climbing, routes are rated using a numerical system.  The one we climbed was a 2-3. (They go up to 5-yikes!)  Technically and physically it was pretty simple.  But mentally, it was a challenge.  We were high enough up that had we fallen, yup, dead!  But we trusted our guide Matt, and more importantly trusted the equipment.  This ended up being our favorite activity of the trip.  Unfortunately, our pictures from our trip were inadvertently erased :-(.  Oh well, we will have to do another!

We spent our final night in British Columbia at a Westin right by the airport before our very early flight the next morning.  Recall, we booked this hotel on SPG points as well.

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Apply For The American Express Starwood Preferred Guest Card Here

In both hotels,, I earned three (3) Starpoints on our incidental charges (like meals) because I am an SPG Gold member and upon checkout at both places, I used my American Express Starwood Preferred Guest card to pay our  hotel bill (for meals, parking, etc) and I will receive two (2) Starpoints for each dollar spent at Starwood resorts with the card.

We loved every bit of our trip.  We will definitely return to Whistler one day to ski and to winter zip line!  Yes they have winter zip lining!

Since writing this post in September 2015, we did head to Whistler in 2016 to ski.  You can read about that trip here.