Thursday, October 10, 2024

Road trip to Canada to experience the famous Gondola Ride in Whistler | Team-BHP

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This time I decided to take my Tesla Model 3 Performance as I wanted to see how the EV fares on the Sea to Sky Highway.

BHPian mobike008 recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Roadtrip from Seattle to Whistler, Canada (September 7 & 8th, 2024)

BHPian Crackhead never visited Canada and he was eager to visit and explore the food scene out in Surrey, Canada.

You may know from my previous travelogues that we regularly go to Surrey to enjoy some authentic Punjabi food. Crackhead being a Punjabi could not resist this temptation so we planned an overnighter and club the famous Whistler Gondola Ride as part of the trip.

We booked a lovely Airbnb in Vancouver and we were all set for this road trip.

This time I decided to take the Tesla as I wanted to see how it fares on the Sea to Sky Highway.

The plan was simple:

Saturday:

Eat as much as you can in as many locations as you can in Surrey, Canada.

Well, we ate so much that we had to visit the gorgeous Stanley Park in Downtown Vancouver and cover our 10,000 steps to get rid of those calories. But, that was in vain as we immediately put it back with a fabulous dinner.

Sunday:

After a hectic day of eating, we headed out early (8:30am) to Whistler which is the skiing capital of Canada and there was a time winter Olympics were held in this location. It’s just 60 miles (100kms) away and the entire drive is through Sea to Sky Highway which is a spectacular highway with ocean on one side and mountains on the other end.

By mistake, we booked the wrong Gondola ride (there is one more in the middle of the Sea to Sky highway). We convinced them to make it an open ticket and thankfully they agreed and made our ticket valid until December 31st, 2024 which means we have to make another trip to enjoy this gondola. Yay!!

We then booked the Gondola ride that was our original intention which was Whistler Gondola on the Blackcomb Mountains.

Let me tell you a little bit about this Gondola Ride. The ticket similar to all attractions in Canada is steep at $100/Person.

Gondola Ride #1

This is an almost 30-minute ride to one of the mountains. This is possibly the longest ride that I ever took on a gondola.

Gondola Ride # 2

This is known as “Peak to Peak” which means it takes you from the peak where we disembarked to another mountain across. This was around 12 minute ride.

Gondola Ride # 3

This was a tough one. There is a 20-minute hike through steep terrain to reach the Gondola departure station. This Gondola is an open-top chair type to the top of the summit.

Once you reach the summit, there is a walk on a dangerously swaying bridge to the edge from where you get spectacular views. We also enjoyed a lovely lunch on the top enjoying the views of the mountain ranges.

We spent a lot of time up there and took the ride down late afternoon.

Around 5:30pm departed from there and stopped in Surrey for a quick charge and dinner and then headed out towards home to reach around midnight.

A lovely weekend spent in the British Columbia. Enjoy the pictures!

Route for this trip.

Rosso Diablo gleaming before the trip.

Vancouver Downtown

Parked in Stanley Park, Vancouver

A cruise ship taking off from Vancouver- View from Stanley Park.

Happy Faces…

Seaplanes were taking off or landing every 5-mins.

We witnessed a spectacular sunset from Stanley Park. One of the best.

Sea to Sky Highway (Vancouver to Whistler- 100 kms of unadulterated fun. The Tesla was taking these corners like a supercar. Carrying a lot of speed in the corners and staying flat. It was an activity of overtaking everyone. I tell ya’ll it’s boring alone in the front.

Beautiful town of Whistler- This is like Banff. Quaint, Historic, French influenced and surrounded by snow capped mountains.

A ferret or something similar was posing for the camera.

On the summit. We walked on this highly swaying steel bridge. It was fun!

Jeep and ATV tours up near the summit. Canada Adventures are next level.

Us on the Summit !!

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