Day 39 - Whistler BC

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Time has really become a man-made construction from this past week of non-wwoofing / camping. Half of my preparation time or reflection was trying to put our past events in chronological order, which is hard when your only source of clock time is from a phone that rarely has service or is turned on. Already babbling..

Canmore BC was our first real representation of a ‘rocky mountain town’. Picture massive snow-capped mountains surrounding the friendliest looking town i’ve seen yet. We were lucky enough to crash at our new friend Hannah’s house with her friend Marissa in Canmore. After going for a walk and seeing what Hannah meant by Canmore having a rabbit problem we settled down with some drinks and watched Easy Rider. If it has been a while, Easy Rider starred Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson and displays what it would have been like to travel through the States to Mardi Gras in the 60’s. It’s also a very accurate look at discrimination of all kinds, with the prominent one being of hippies and basically anyone who grew their hair ‘long’.

The next morning we planned to hike, but got rained out. No worries though because our next stop was Kamloops, which is about 7 hours away.

On the way to Kamloops we spent an hour or two in Revelstoke, which we had both heard of but never thought we’d step foot. Found a really cool tea spot with internet so sent away some emails hoping to find a place to crash in Kamloops (camping sucks when you set up in the dark and in the rain). We managed to meet a girl on couchsurfing.org who had to work at a pub until 2 but we could wait for her there until then. Got into town and quickly found internet in another cafe to read this news, then went to see the new X-Men movie to pass some time. We met Sarah at the bar she manages and tried a few of the brews made at the microbrewery on site. After some deep chats which included her experiences in Nepal we went to bed and went out for breakfast the next morning. We had no idea of the day we were about to have.

A post or two back I had introduced Jeff, who lived mostly in BC without a permanent address or bank account for approximately eight years in the 90’s. He had some stories to say the least. With that said, a page long letter he had prepared for us lead to a seasonal dirt road about an hour and a half outside of Whistler BC. This road literally climbed a mountain, and passed his old driveway and a lookout point overseeing snow-capped mountains, a bright blue lake and a long way between us and any of it. After acknowledging that the Tercel wouldn’t be able to make it down the side road Jeff had once trekked down ~15 years ago before, we got out of the car and walked about 20 minutes downhill to the shore. This is after a few hours of driving and no lunch, so even coming back up after discovering paradise at the bottom was a challenge. The tent was out of the question, so air mattresses, sleeping bags and a couple of tarps had to do for our sleeping arrangements. We ate canned beans for supper which we purchased from the native reserve convenience store along with some fruit and eggs for the morning. Ultimately we probably ended up with another 100 pounds each when it came down to bags and cooking supplies.

When it was all said and done we managed to get down the hill and set up our camp site by 5:30pm. Waiting for us was an emerald lake surrounded by massive mountains. White rocks lined the shore which Justin was stoked to fish from. There was a ton of extremely dry wood so we put together a fire pit from stones and relaxed in the glory of this place for the night. When it was time to call it a night the sound of the waves only a few feet away echoed from our tarp, which combined with a crackling fire and, at times, a Canadian Pacific train barrelling through the rocky mountains made for a truly humbling experience. I still think Jeff is crazy for suggesting we take that road in a car so packed down it sometimes bottoms out in city driving but we are forever grateful for him sharing his paradise.
After an incredibly revitalizing rest we got up, made breakfast, and literally had the most challenging hike of our lives. Though we took the bare minimum, it was enough to make us stop at least seven times while walking up this mountain road. When we got to the car we were drenched and, once making it back to the reserve (flat ground), made our way to Pemberton BC.

Jeff described Pemberton as a town made up of former Whistler residents who began to raise a family and decided to move north about a 30 minute drive. We planned on wwoofing when we arrived but our care-free attitude bit us in the arse as we did not plan enough in advance for where we would stay. Luckily there’s always camping, so we had another chill night and stayed at Nairn Falls Provincial Park. We contacted a few farms and will likely begin our Pemberton farming experience very soon, but first we needed to explore Whistler BC.

Thanks to couch surfing we met an incredibly sweet Aussie named Hayley who took us in no question. We met her in the village then after getting some groceries for supper we hung out in her apartment while she had coffee with some friends. Later on that night we went to Karaoke at a pub filled with people our age. It’s very strange to go out in Whistler on a Tuesday night because most people work on weekends so there’s no shortage of people out. Also, Hayley told us the ratio of Australians to other nationalities is probably 70/30. Everywhere you look you can hear Aussie accents which is awesome.
We got home from the village and talked for a while before hitting the sack, and this morning Hayley made us French toast which was way beyond the couch surfing ‘agreement’ but so appreciated.
Tonight our potential farm is contacting us and will likely arrive today or tomorrow. We’re less than two hours from Vancouver which is blowing my mind as we still have all of July and some of August to explore this beautiful province. This time off from wwoofing has definitely begun a new chapter which is BC, and I can’t wait to record the events to come.

Thanks for reading. Keep following your bliss, even if it’s difficult to do. I have no idea where my life is going to take me but for the first time I’m completely fine with that. The present moment is all you have.

Ryan

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