Summer Sun and Fun

  Great places to play and get away

Wonderful Whistler

The cascading fringes of evergreen trees flash by as I zip along a cable suspended 150 feet above the thunderous glacial-white rapids of Fitzsimmons Creek. Halfway down the 1,100-foot line -- strung over narrow valley between British Columbia's Whistler and Blackcomb mountains -- a headwind spins me sideways.

"Yoweeeeeeeee." I'm both thrilled and scared, bt don't have time to ponder either emotion as I zoom, at more than 25 mph, to a platform built around the trunk of a Pacific silver fir.

James, one of our 10-person group's guides from Ziptrek Ecotours, unhooks me from the cable and radios co-guide Dave to send the next zipliner, a 30-something adventurer named Dan.

"Woo-hoo! Who-hoo!" Dan yells as he flies toward the platform in a "Look, Mom, no hands" pose, trusting the harness to keep him secure. "That was a blast," he says when he lands. "That's more fun than a hootenanny. I could do this all day."

By "hootenanny," he explains, he means a county fair. 

Taras, another zipliner, is here warming up for a skydiving adventure in Las Vegas next week. "Anything that acclimates you to heights is supposed to be good," he says.

I guess I'm getting acclimated. When I was 11, it took me 20 minutes to jump off the high dive during swimming lessons. I never dreamed I'd have the courage to dash alson five ziplines 80 to 1,100 feet long and 80 to 150 feet high, but James and Dave have spent a lot of time explaining all the safety measures, and I'm actually having a good time.

In between zips, the guides tell us about the flora and fauna of the costal temperate rainforest through which we're speeding an ecosystem they say is found only a few places on earth. 

On the way back to Whistler Village, they also point out the Sliding Center under construction for the 2010 Olympics. it's interesting to see the center under way, but I'm glad Michael and I haven't waited for the Olympics to visit. There's so much to do in the area, we wish we had two weeks instead of a weekend. At the end of our first day, I give my spouse a list of 25 wanna-dos, from Hummer, jetboat, river-running, fishing, mountain-biking and bear-viewing tours to championship golfing, glacier hiking, lake swimming and horseback riding.

Horizon Air Magazine, Michele Andrus Dill, May 2006