Point Roberts, UBC, The Grind, Sea to Sky and Mountain Biking in Whistler – Vancouver – October 2018

This trip started with the release of the NHL schedule in June.  Adam noticed that the Pens were playing Vancouver Oct 27, 2018 so we booked a Thurs to Sun trip.

Thursday, October 25, 2018

We landed in Vancouver about 6:00 pm, grabbed our rental car and drove pretty much straight south to Point Roberts, Washington.  It’s a strange little chunk of land that is a “pene-exclave” of the United States.  Basically that means it is a peninsula where most of the land is located belongs to Canada but the tip belongs to the United States.  The only way you can get to it by car is through Canada.  The reason it exists as part of the US is it was overlooked back in the mid-19th Century when land divisions were being made.  The decision was made to use the 49th parallel to divide that part of what is now Canada and the US but they forgot about this little chunk of land.  It’s about 12 sq kilometres and has a population of fewer than 2000 people.  We drove in and went to the Point Roberts Marketplace which appeared to be the only grocery store in town.  We bought a couple of Powerball tickets just because it would have been fun to have a Canadian win the 650 million prize but no luck this time!

Friday, October 26, 2018

One of the Universities on Adam’s shortlist was the University of British Columbia.  It’s very well known for both it’s strong Engineering program (2nd in the country and 34th in the world) but it also has an incredible location.  We headed there first thing in the morning Friday as Adam had arranged a couple of tours of the campus.  First, we sat in on a first-year Psych class.  Over 250 students so we grabbed a couple of seats at the back and blended right  in…maybe Adam more than me.

After the class was over we headed over to meet up with our campus tour group. The tour was really informative and showed off a lot of the beauty of the UBC campus.  We were also treated to a one on one tour of the Engineering buildings and particularly the Design Team labs.  It was much appreciated and gave us a great insight into life as a UBC Engineering student.

After an awesome morning touring UBC we stopped back at the hotel, changed our clothes and headed just north of the city to Grouse Mountain.  Our goal was to tackle the “Grouse Grind” a very challenging hike straight up Grouse Mountain.  It is over 2800 steps and is almost 3 kilometres of climb.  We timed it so we were at the top just as the sun was going down so we were treated to a beautiful sunset over the City Of Vancouver.

Saturday, October 27, 2018

The day starts very early as we enjoy a solid breakfast at the hotel and then jump in the car for a drive up the Sea to Sky Highway to Whistler as the sun comes up. The beautiful two-hour drive from Vancouver to Whistler is one of our favourites in all of the trips. You can see the waters of Howe Sound, snow-capped peaks, waterfalls and canyons as well as various wildlife and nature sightings.

Once we arrived in Whistler we headed to the tourist information centre and found a mountain bike store that had a couple of rentals available for the day. We took off to an area known as the “Zappa Trails” just outside of the main part of town.. Great weather, lots of trails and beautiful scenery made for an unforgettable day at Whistler!

After a great day at Whistler we headed back to Vancouver, changed into our game gear and walked over to the Rogers Arena to see the Canucks play the Pittsburgh Penguins.  Having seen many Pens away games over the years, it never fails to amaze me how many Pens fans show up.  I thought Vancouver was a bit far away from Pittsburgh but there was still a large contingent of vocal Pens supporters.

Sunday, October 28, 2018

We caught an early flight home and made it back in time to get to Adam’s hockey game. It was a very jam-packed weekend and one of our top three trips so far!