Mother's Whistler | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Mother's Whistler | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
08/13/15
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If you ask my mother she would tell you that defining Whistler, BC as simply a tourist attraction is like calling the Grand Canyon a ditch. Scene of the 2010 Winter Olympics and destiny of millions of summer bikers and winter skiers, the resort is designed as an alpine wonderland. "God's final touch," mom says.

Whistler Mountain got its current name from the call of the hoary marmot which sounds through the valley where the Cheakamus and Green rivers meet at the base of the Garibaldi Mountain range.

There are over two million pillows available within half a mile of the ski-lifts with 150 hotels, condos, chalets, and other options. My mother has tried enough of them to make some residents think she has a position on staff somewhere. There are also 230 hostel beds and 118 campsites. 35,000 people are accommodated nightly.

Mom prefers the suites where she can make her own meals but she still knows the menus on most of the almost 100 eateries. She also knows most of the contents on the over 200 retail shops. She’s hiked to each of the five major lakes in the valley and has biked or walked to most of the 15 public parks. She has the scrap book photos over the past thirty years to prove it.

The locals pride themselves in how long they can avoid going down to the city which they call the Big Smoke. From the early days when they came up by boat, train and donkey cart, they have tried to stay rooted and somewhat isolated. The pioneers opened up the land and others continue to flood into the breached mountain paradise.

The pedestrian village has won numerous design awards and is consistently voted one of the top destinations in North America. It is an international destination point and languages and cultures from all over the world can be seen enjoying the options.

Whistler Village and Whistler Creekside are over 2,000 feet above sea level, two hours from Vancouver and five hours from Seattle. Mom is now living in a senior’s home in Vancouver but she doesn’t forget the hundreds of Australian friends she made year after year. She still insists that I drive her up the Sea to Sky Highway every few months.

Last week we went to the Mountain Bike championships. The closest mom ever got to a mountain bike was when she got hit by one on the cobblestone main walkway. She still thanks God for that because it was in the clinic waiting room where she met dad. He’d fallen off his skateboard trying to show off.

Dad left to visit his birth family in Australia two decades ago and never came back. His brother said he drowned during surfing after a Great White Shark bit him. We still don’t know what to believe. Mom likes to take pictures of the flowers around the Village and claim that she is keeping them to show dad.

When we flip through her scrap book, which we do after every trip, we see pink cherry trees, broadleaf maples, and arbutus groves. There is a form of dogwood different than the Provincial version, there are bunchberries, spruce, and there is skunk cabbage (I never know why mom wants this picture).

Mom has a picture of a fourteen inch Dolly Varden Trout she caught near Alta Lake back in the eighties. She has pictures of her on nine different gondolas and a few chair lifts. She’s been up to the 7,500 foot mark. She has pictures of grizzlies and black bears and even a moose. There’s a picture of a beaver making a dam. One of her favorite photos is of herself , holding an Olympic torch, surrounded by three gold medalists.

I’ve gotten used to our trips. I ski through the powder and take advantage of the thirty foot annual snow fall. I haven’t tried the snowboarding or luge. I’m no longer crashing down the world class mountain bike courses but I still cycle and ski through the 200 miles of cross-country trails.

Now, mom wants to go on the Peak to Peak gondola. That gondola happens to boast the longest free span between ropeway towers at almost two miles and it also boasts the highest gondola above ground at almost 1,500 feet. And to make matters worse, they have options with glass bottoms for a full 360 experience. I keep telling mom, “this place is for the young at heart.”

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