Whistler 10 years later.

When I first moved to Canada a group of buddies from the Ottawa river put me in their station wagon and carted me across the country to see what it had to offer. This is one of the main reasons I decided to call this country home. We made this trek across the country in fall and so we didn’t get all the rivers we wanted too as it was rolling into fall. Whistler still showed us a good time, but, ten years later I have had the chance to return.

With a last-minute buddy pass, I flew to Vancouver to meet a friend and go on a week-long vacation to the promised land. With our bikes, tents and boats in tow we headed north up the seas to sky to revisit a place that in recent years I have only seen in winter. With medium water throughout the area we began tackling both the kayaking and cross country biking classics. What a great time.

I could bore you with the various rivers and trails that we rode, however, I would rather touch on the differences a place like this has for a person a decade later. The fact that I am slowly creeping into my thirties has started to create a certain level of inquisitiveness as to how ones continues to live the traveling lifestyle while also successfully working towards those things that people in their thirties work towards. Dog, wife, kid, house, in no particular order. Usually the “M.O.” is to pack up ones car, drive across the country and try find camping in any possible place as long as it doesn’t cost money. I’m 32, I want to kayak, then bike, eat healthy and maybe go to bed before 10 so I can do it for six days straight, then hop back on a plane. All while needing to be in shape to turn up to work ready to deal with whatever comes our way. 

So, this time we paid for camping, didn’t cheap out on our groceries and even had a few beers… at a bar!! In the grand scheme of things not much has changed, well, except for the fact that we can’t take a whole summer off anymore. Whistler is still awesome, there are still a whole bunch of homies living in vans up logging roads and an awesome vibe every time you turn p to the river. There are even still a group of early twenty something’s rallying multiple laps of a river on any given day… Whistler hasn’t changed a bit!