There’s Darth Vader playing the violin – Day 13: Whistler

Today was a day that both Dad and I had been looking forward to – we were off up Whistler mountain in a Hummer, and it was our last opportunity to see some bears. Now there had been reported sightings of bears by other people on the coach but by the time they had been pointed out either the coach had gone past or the bears had run off.

We were up at 8:00 and downstairs by 8:30 to pay for the excursion and be on our way. The Hummers duly arrived and by 9:00, once again I had blagged the front seat, we were strapped in and we were off.

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...7/P8200084.jpg

We made our way up the mountain and despite all our best efforts there were no bears in sight. By the way if you’ve ever wondered if a Hummer has reclining seats, it does if you do this!

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...7/P8200091.jpg

I was a bit too slow in taking this photo so you don’t really get the full effect but imagine if you will the angle at which you would be sitting if you drove up that slope but came to a halt half way up. Once the driver had done that he then reversed up the slope so we were all hanging forward in our safety harnesses, or seat belt in my case!

We reached 6,069 feet and stopped off at the Roundhouse Lodge to admire the views

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...7/P8200087.jpg

the symbol of the 2010 Winter Olympics, the Inukshuk

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...7/P8200085.jpg

and a sample of the new gondolas that are being built to cross from Whistler mountain to Blackcomb mountain

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...7/P8200090.jpg

Now the highest point these gondolas will be is 13,000 feet, the journey time from summit to summit will be 11 minutes and one of the gondolas will have A GLASS FLOOR :shocked025: ,any takers?

We made our way back down the mountain and were dropped back at the hotel at 10:50. We dropped off our cameras and made our way into town where we had a walk around – oh look there’s the KFC we were looking for last night - and went into the Brewhouse for lunch where we had burger and chips and a honey brown lager and met up with some of the other couples from the coach.

After lunch we wandered round the rest of the shops and then went back to the room to rest for a while. We went back out at 5:00 and , now we knew where it was, went to KFC for something to eat. I had popcorn chicken and a root beer while Dad had chicken pieces and a root beer.

We then had another wander round town and I bought a 2010 hooded zip up sweatshirt I had been admiring before going back to the room to pack ready for our journey home tomorrow. Packing finished we were both in bed by about 9:40.

Tomorrow: Return to Vancouver and home