Day 16: out of the badlands and into the mountains

Waking up with ash covering our tents, we left as fast as we could to go through the badlands and onto the beautiful highway 99 through the valleys towards whistler.

Wild Wild West

Waking up with the sound of the cows, our car and tents was covered by a thin sheet of ash from the wildfires nearby. Not wanting to burn alive, we made our breakfast and coffee, packed our tents then swiftly made our way out from our questionably legal campsite to start our drive towards Whistler. Between the Rockies and the Coastal Mountains, we passed through small mining towns, burning valleys and badlands. It really looked like we were passing through time in the wild west.

The beautifully fun ‘‘sea to sky highway’’

Arriving in cache creek, we started our journey through highway 99, the Sea-to-Sky Highway. This is by far the funnest road we have ever driven and one the most beautiful ones as well. Filled to the brim with hairpin turns, twisting its way through magnificent valleys, the views of the snow topped mountains and glaciers at every turn is some of the best we’ve seen thus far.

‘‘I am obligated to return here with a motorcycle’’

-Marty

mesmerized at every stop

Slowly making our way to Whistler through this beautiful roller coaster of a highway, we stopped on the side of one of the rivers where we found a wooden bridge looking on at the glacier filled mountains in front of us. A bit further along the way we stopped at a random lake besides the highway reflecting the mountain range behind it.

It seems that every turn and every stop we made on the highway became more and more beautiful.

Whistler!

Arriving in Whistler we stopped for the day to explore the village. Being the weekend, the town was packed with tourists and mountain bikers. Marty was drooling over the slopes all around us seeing the legendary mountain bike park just ahead. Sadly, it was wayyyy too expensive to rent and ride here; We’ll just have to return when we’re not on the student budget!

Off-roading to our campsite again!

After exploring the town it was time to find our campsite for the night. Being a tourist town, finding a free camp spot was a bit of a challenge, we had to go a bit out of town in between Squamish and Whistler where we off-roaded up a trail, up one of the mountains that led us to a nice open campsite with a view of the nearby mountain.

After building a makeshift table and chairs out of nearby rocks, we enjoyed a nice drink and played a few rounds of frime before heading off to sleep