Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains Day 1

On our first day in Whistler, we hopped on the Blackcomb chairlift to start our 2 day Peak 2 Peak sightseeing. You really don't need 2 days, but there was a special on them giving 2 days for the price of one, and I figured we might as well get two in case we had bad weather on 1 of those days. On the Blackcomb chairlift, you get a nice open view as you go. We got to see a black bear cub along our way. The mountains have a black bear population of about 80 bears, so it's common to spot one.

We stopped to eat lunch in this area and took a few pictures of the gorgeous view from there.

I also thought we'd do a lot of hiking on these mountains. But there ended up being so much snow that most of the hiking trails were still closed. At least the snow was pretty. This is the actual peak 2 peak gondola spanning the length between Whistler and Blackcomb mountains. It actually holds world records for the longest free span between ropeway towers. It's perfectly safe, but while riding on it it seems pretty scary since you'd have zero chance of survival if the ropes broke. Fortunately, that's not likely to happen. We still got some decent shots in spite of being behind closed windows. These waterfalls can only be seen from the gondola. The valley between the two mountains is very pretty. We took these pretty pictures once we got out on safely on Whistler mountain. This mountains, hills, trees, lakes view reminded me of being on Mt Washington on Vancouver Island. One of the Olympic sculptures. Afterwards, we took a steep hike down to another chairlift that would take us to the very tip top of the mountain. There was still quite a bit of snow up this high. But the views were gorgeous. We liked this natural sculpture in the rocks. We went around the area on the only 2 accessible hikes. Oscar loved this lake area. He said he'd like to go on a quest to find it. It seriously looks so far away and so ideal that you'd think it had some sort of magic properties. I just couldn't get enough of the gorgeous views and the glacier topped mountains. But eventually we did come back down the Whistler chairlift and explored the cute Whistler village. I definitely preferred the Blackcomb lifts to the enclosed Whistler chairlift, which is supposed to be one of the longest chairlifts in the world. The seats aren't comfortable to lean on (you can't sit), and the view is obscured by the closed doors. We ended our day at the mountains by playing a little mini-golf on their 18 hole course. It was much nicer and more fun than the course at Mount Washington. And I actually beat Oscar. Usually he kills me, but I won by 5 strokes!

We also rode their alpine slide