Whistler

Last week we took a childless trip up to the Northwest with some friends. Whistler was our first stop, and it was really impressive. We flew into Vancouver and drove the 2.5 hours to Whistler. Along the way we stopped at Snoqualmie Falls. The picture doesn't do it justice. It was huge and beautiful. 

We made it to Whistler late in the afternoon and met everyone for dinner. All of our friends were already there, we just had to make a quick pit stop in KC to drop Emerson off with Nanny and Poppy.  A big shout out to them for being so great with her for 5 days!! 

We celebrated Amy's birthday a bit late at a cute pizza place in the village. 

Olympic rings in the heart of the village! 

The next day we rafted the Elaho river. The rafting was the best by far that I have ever done. The rapids were huge (category 4), and two of our party, to be remained nameless (Missy and George), fell of out of the raft. :) All was good though! We even got to cliff jump off of a 15 - 20 foot ledge into the river. IT. WAS. SO. COLD. I've never been that cold in my life. Shocked the breath out of you cold. It was worth it though. 

Our group had to be split in two rafts, and we were in a bit of a competition. Our raft (picture below) was clearly the winning raft since all six of us cliff jumped and none of us fell out of the boat. :) 

Team Frostbite for the win! 

The six of us had a great dinner at Rim Rock that night. 

Half of our group left the next day. We all just made it up there when we could and those six had been there for four days. Blake and I explored the village, and both Whistler and Backcomb mountains this morning. Below are some pictures of the village. It is giant. There are actually two villages, one at each mountain base, connected to each other. I am used to the tiny Durango village so this was a bit shocking. 

We took the ski lift up Whistler mountain. The base of the mountain is only 2400 feet about sea level or so, but you make an aggressive 5000 foot ascent. 

Two lifts got us to the top. 

We then took the peak to peak gondola from Whistler to Backcomb peak. It was incredible. The cars held at least 18 people and the ride took about 15 minutes. 

The Purgasons, Willsons and Allens continued the trip to Vancouver.