Whistler

Vegetables!  Prepared in an actual kitchen!

Kristen looking out over Green Lake on the Rainbow-Sproatt Flank Trail

After 3 or so solid weeks living in a tent in the wilderness, we decided to rent a condo for 5 days in Whistler, BC.

The drive from Jasper was gorgeous (there did not seem to be any sort of large valley between the Rockies and the coast ranges like there is further south).

When we arrived, the place felt impossibly luxurious.  Our own bathroom!  That we can use at any time of night without having to go outside!  A real kitchen!  Heat and AC!  A real bed!  I think we both felt almost a little ashamed to have so much convenient stuff all to ourselves.

We went a little nuts on the food.  I should preface this by saying that at the start of the trip, we had fantastical ideas of what we would be able to cook at our campsites (we even brought a couple cookbooks).  By August, they turned out to be just that – fantasy.  Simmering a pot of wild rice for an hour over a finicky propane stove is a huge bummer when it’s 40 degrees outside and the wind is blowing.  Our campsite meals had degraded to the old standbys – a can of Amy’s Organic soup and some quesadillas.

So when we got to Whistler, we cooked every meal, and pounded the vegetables.  We had salads, roasted root vegetables, wild rice pilaf, hearty grain bread dipped in olive oil and vinegar, pancakes for breakfast, and sometimes a nice piece of meat to share each night.  And, since storage wasn’t an issue, we also got to try a few different bottles of wine while we were staying there!

Aside from the food, Whistler was a blast.  We went for mountain bike rides every day, mostly on the local Frank Zappa trails near lost lake, with one long ride up the Rainbow-Sproatt Flank Trail.  It had been a month or two since we’d last ridden, so we were rusty.  But by the end of the trip, we were riding better than we ever had.  We also went for long walks through the village and surrounding areas each day.

After a few weeks in the wilderness, Whistler felt like paradise.  We didn’t want to leave.