Pemberton and a bear safari

Hey everyone,

Last night I went out and had a crepe for dinner and brought Rob back a microwave meal. I used my umbrella for the first time of the trip as it was cold and a bit rainy.

This morning, we set off in our car towards Pemberton, a cute little town that my Canadian friend Lexi had told me about. On the way we stopped at One Mile Lake, where we walked the one mile circuit in the sun on a boardwalk through the water and the forest. We saw a bald eagle here. We were very lucky with beautiful sunny weather!

Then we wandered around Pemberton, which was beautiful with Mt Currie looming over it, but for such a small town had two cannabis shops which was crazy (they're everywhere over here...!). We had an early lunch at a bakery in the town's old train station. We sat in the sun along with lots of other people enjoying a sausage roll and a pain au chocolat.

Next we went to Lillooet Lake. I was worried we wouldn't really get to see an aqua/green/blue lake over here as it's not the right time of year. Many are frozen or haven't cleared out much yet, but this one was stunning. The best part was we had this one completely to ourselves.

On the way back, we went to the Beer Farmers, a farmyard brewery that Lexi had also recommended. The bartender was from Perth and we chatted to him for a bit before enjoying a drink in the sun. I had a cider and then a rose and hibiscus sour beer which was nice. We really enjoyed it here. Mt Currie loomed beautifully in the distance here as well. We had a look at the tulips and daffodils in their field and then drove back to Whistler.

We were picked up at 3.50pm for our bear safari by our guide, Chris. Today's tour was the first one in six months with the company I had researched a while back. We were so lucky that they had started up today. We were unsure we would see any bears as the peak time for seeing them isn't for another 1-2 months, but we decided to give our luck a try anyway. Whistler has around 100 black bears and at times has a few grizzlies passing through. The reason grizzlies aren't really drawn to the area is that there is no salmon etc and they require more protein that black bears.

Bears apparently love golf courses due to the grass and are often seen around the ones in Whistler. They also love eating the berries, clovers and dandelions that appear later on in spring and summer, as well as the skunk cabbage we've seen around (which apparently stinks later on in spring!). Only 50% of their cubs make it to adulthood, due to predation or starvation. Ahead of the winter, bears have to consume up to 20,000 calories per day to put on enough fat to hibernate through winter. During hibernation, their heart rate can lower to as low as 8 beats per minute! Apparently at this time of the year they need to consume 5,000-7,000 calories per day.

Our tour started off going to the Whistler Sliding Centre, where we enjoyed great views and got to check out the bobsled/skeleton track which is apparently the fastest in the world. Then we drove to the Whistler Olympic Park which is not accessible to the public, and can only be accessed by maintenance, athletes when they are training and Whistler Photo Safaris who we toured with today. The park has a micro climate and the temperature dropped about 6 degrees once we went in there, and there was still plenty of snow around. We walked a snowy path to the beautiful Alexander Falls, and then went and saw the ski jumps and the biathlon area (apparently this is a sport where you shoot and ski?!).

We had sort of given up hope at this point, thinking that the tour had still been worthwhile to see the usually off limits Olympic area. But, just as we were stopping to enjoy a view on the way down the hill leaving the park, we saw a bear!! He was an approximately 8 year old cinnamon bear, which is a subspecies of the black bear. We sat and watched him for quite a while. He ate the entire time we were watching!! We then saw a coyote and another bald eagle.

Tonight we had dinner at a restaurant in town and then an ice cream. Tomorrow we drive to our next stop, Jasper. We have really enjoyed it here!

Love to all
Claire
Xoxox