Ziptrek Ecotours

Heading out on a Smartcation in B.C.

Last Updated on Tuesday, 05 July 2011 05:48

Be jaded no more; it’s one of the most visually arresting drives in North America

Original Article - The Vancouver Province - July 4, 2011 By Pauline Frommer, Postmedia News

The zip line at Whistler is the second longest in North America.

Though we may not always like to admit it,  “keeping up with the Joneses” can be as much a factor in travel as it is in, well, lawn ornamentation. So, exactly how will our friends and neighbours be spending their summer vacations? I recently teamed up with Angus Reid Public Opinion to answer that question. We polled more than 2,000 North Americans about their plans for the next several months and the results were telling:

Goodbye Staycation:  Of our respondents, very few planned to just stay at home catching up on the laundry and pretending it was a vacation this summer. Instead, they’ll be hitting the road, perhaps in their own province/state or heading to others nearby, but making use of lodgings other than their own bedrooms over their holidays.

More with Less: A good 57 per cent of the respondents reported that their vacations would be short ones of four days or less.

Money matters: Pocketbooks will not be padlocked this summer: 67 per cent reported that they’d be spending as much or more than they did last year. But finding places that offered value for the money was the top priority among travellers.

Other priorities: The second most important factor in choosing a destination was natural beauty. Not far behind were destinations that were within reasonable travel time from their homes. Fourth were places that offered diversity, a great number of potential activities and sights within a relatively compact area.

What does all this data show? That travellers are going to be savvier this summer, substituting Smartcations — where convenient vacations of just four days contain such a variety of experiences, they feel like a full week— for the tired old Staycation.

To test out the concept, I embarked on a whirlwind, four-day tour of British Columbia. The fit was, in a word, perfect and I believe B.C. is set to become one of the top destinations in North America for Smartcations this summer.

My adventure started, as it does for so many travellers, with the extraordinarily scenic drive from Vancouver to Whistler.

Are you Vancouverites jaded about this stretch of highway? For an outsider, each turn was a revelation, as the Howe Sound, with its green, bubble-shaped islands soon morphed into a humped mountainous landscape, the peaks growing steeper as the kilometres ticked by. It is, without a doubt, one of the most visually arresting drives in North America.

Once in Whistler, I was well nigh stumped by all of the options I had for raising my heart rate (and perhaps shortening my lifespan).

I passed on the chance to break limbs at Whistler’s infamous mountain bike park, though watching the riders hurtling down in full body armour, navigating root-riddled roads, steep drop-offs and devilish teeter-totters was a pretty big thrill.

I took a delightful hike around Lost Lake, and my Whistler Alpine guide joked that in order to get good at extreme mountain biking, one had to start at age five because limbs heal more quickly then. “And you’re going to break a leg at some point,” he laughed. Of course, there are many valleys and trails for the more conservative rider but I enjoyed watching these intense athletes.

I spied on these daredevils from the Peak2Peak gondola heading up the mountain, a must for any visitor. Be sure to snag a silver gondola with glass floors; there’s no better way to comprehend just how high the darn thing is than looking down through the glass at trees reduced to particularly spiky moss, way below.

Another high-flying adventure was the skills-free, but thrills-rich zip line offered by Ziptrek Ecotours, as it includes what had been, until recently, the longest zip line run in all of North America (alas, a recent construction in Alaska has the title now). Ziplining is always fun, but what made the tour unique was the downright scholarly, terrifically entertaining commentary by the guides on the ecology of the forest and the measures being taken to preserve this important eco-system.

A third Whistler recommendation I must make for those taking quickie Smartcations are the engrossing bear safaris led by Michael Allen who has been studying bears in the area for more than 20 years.

They offer an in-depth look at how a naturalist researches his topic, as well as a bucketload of fascinating info on the life of these animals.

From how they hibernate (eating rocks and dirt before they hit the sack to form a natural plug so they don’t soil their dens) to mating rituals and care for the young, it’s all covered in this engrossing tour.

What else is there to do in Whistler? The possibilities are boundless from bungee jumping to ATV touring to kayaking, golf and fishing.

The second half of my vacation was spent partaking in the sophisticated pleasures of Vancouver and Richmond. I ate myself silly at your food trucks, finally understanding the allure of poutine at the Kaboom Box and enjoying the melding of cultures at Roaming Dragon.

Though it was rainy, I hit the streets for a humorous, but info-rich tour of Vancouver’s West End with the Tour Guys (www.tourguys.ca). It’s a free tour that I think even Vancouverites would find informative.

Next it was a heaping helping of culture at the Vancouver Art Gallery; it’s currently featuring a superb show on surrealism, featuring important works by such boldfaced names as Dali, Magritte and Carrington. What I found most interesting was the curator’s decision to intersperse pieces of Tlingit art and artifacts as many of the European artists were directly inspired by their First Nations counterparts.

And what would a visit to Vancouver be without a side trip to Richmond? I wandered slack-jawed through a mall, taking in the thousands of different types of cellphone covers, cunning Japanese kitchen aids and Hello Kitty EVERYTHING. In many ways, it was this little journey and my meal in a Taiwanese restaurant that made the vacation feel particularly smart, as it felt like I hadn’t just hopped the Canada Line, but a plane directly to Asia.

Will you be taking a Smartcation this summer? As residents of British Columbia, you’re extraordinarily well-situated for the experience!

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