| thedougsite Olympic Park An Afternoon's Toot Into the Callaghan Valley |
| A nice sunny Aug. 3/11
afternoon, so we decided to do a run up to the Callaghan Valley and
into Whistler's Olympic Park. Its barely an hour north of us but well
worth the easy, relaxed cruise. After all, it is world class scenery
the whole way. The valley is surrounded by rocky peaks and snowfields. |
| There isn't a whole lot to
actually see there, just the usual snow covered mountains, huge trees,
wild rivers, that kind of thing. So we had to settle with taking shots
of what we could find. Here's one of those stone things that were all
over the place during the games. This on is about 12ft high. |
| Here are the ski jump ramps and
landing pads. They don't look all that impressive from this view, but
when we had visitors up at the top the summer before the games, they
felt quit high and 'out there'. There is a ski lift for taking people
up, you don't have to hike it unless you want to. |
| There was lots of bear poop on
the roadway but this is the only one we actually saw. It was
early afternoon and most of them would have been snoozing in the shade
back in the bush somewhere. This one is a young cub, munching on the
fresh vegitation at the side of the road. Don't know where momma was
but I'll bet she was not far away. |
| The ride back out is quite nice.
As you drop toward the valley and the highway the views of the Black
Tusk are great. Its a cynder cone left over from the volcanic period a
short 10 thousand years ago. The roadway is a motorcycling pleasure
with its sweeping curves and hilly hills. |
| Just another view. 'The Wife'
gets pretty good at taking shots over my shoulder. I had worked up in
this area before the Olympics helping to put in some of these hydro
poles. We used a big excavator to scratch our way through the rock, and
quite often had needed to let the blasting crews take over. |
| Just another
shot of the Tusk with its snowy upper slopes and sharp peak. |
| The ride back down toward the
coast takes us along the Cheakamus River for a while. The river is
running high and wild due to the snowmelt that is finally happening
that should have happened 4 months ago. It won't all melt this year. |
| We were home
shortly after this and I was able to pick a handfull of early ripening
blueberries to enjoy on ice-cream . |
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