Whistler, British Columbia 'Bear sighting at Column 13'

From Vancouver it was a long drive past river and mountains dusted with snow, a bald eagle spanning on casual winds; and for a moment time stood still – I look at eagle and dark mountain and I am transported amidst a People who lived in complete reverence to their awesome landscape.

We curve into a highway rest-stop at Squamish; a short walk from the car-park to your regular Tim Hortens or McDonalds or Taco Bell…On the road again and soon we reach the village of Whistler – ski resort in winter (one of the venues for the coming Winter Olympics 2010), now busy with summer’s holiday vagabonds. A village with cobblestoned pathways, restaurants and coffee houses, summer activities are numerous; the ski-runs are now green, though the peaks are still holding white. We take a gondola up to the peak; on the way we watch below, extreme adventure cyclists riding down the runs on their hot mountain bikes, while some of them take the ski lift up challenging heights to eventually daredevil down. We stop at the first gondola port and I read on a little board the chalked-out words “bear sighting at column 13”! As we ascended counting columns, No bear at “13”. Soon we were up and the kid in us enjoyed the snow; noticed how it was slowly melting to form these little droplets that run into trickles, eventually into streams and all this melting is what feeds the water bodies; their faithful presence that very much gives Vancouver her beauty. Our digitals go silently clicking the post-card pictures around and the beauty of Mt. Whistler, its top dressed in sheets of snow against dark surface of rock. People of all ages and sizes, girls and boys enjoying whamming snowballs at each other; just having a mountain of fun. We soon embarked on the descent in the enclosed gondola intently counting pillars; came to “13” no bear in sight?----pass “13” and there he is - the Big Brown Bear sauntering on green meadow. Was so relieved I was up high in a gondola gently sliding down to base station. Whew! Imposing peak and exciting bear-sighting.

Back in Vancouver and we drive down to Stanley Park: the green jewel of Vancouver; a rainforest of towering ancient red cedar and Douglas fir. Jutting out into the ocean, the park lay vulnerable to a windstorm in December of 2006, that knocked down thousands of precious trees like matchsticks. Stopped at the impressive and famous Hollow Tree and took snapshots at Prospect Point; no we didn’t feed the raucous raccoons ! At Brockton we stared at tall Totem Poles that mesmerized us back in time. At the gift shop, picked up a couple of hand crafted miniatures and a little jade bear on amethyst, the semi precious rocks of B.C. Best way to end your trip at Stanley Park is a horse drawn carriage ride along Park Drive.