Walking in Whistler's Clouds

Originally, the destination of this hiking trip was Wedgemount Lake in the north of Whistler, a path with a height of1.200m and a round trip of1.4km, which was very challenging, and some people were too nervous to sleep well. I leave at 7: 45 in the morning. Two hours later, when I arrived in Whistler, I saw many cyclists speeding on the road, and some ice cream cones began to appear on the road. Slowly, the ice cream cone forced the team into a driveway and walked slowly. There are still many people cheering for the driver by the roadside. It seems that there is a game going on. At first, we felt good, as if all the refueling along the way was directed at us, because today we are also a group of brave people who dare to climb! Unexpectedly, in Whistler village, we were stopped by volunteers who kept order. Volunteers told us that because of today's "Iron Man" competition, the roads in this area will be closed in both directions until 1: 30 pm, which means we can't move back and forth, and we can't leave Whistler before that. What a tragedy! ?

After some discussion, we had to decide to go up the mountain temporarily. Whistler is a world-class tourist attraction. Whistler Mountain and Heishu Mountain have beautiful scenery and rich trails. Why not take this opportunity to take a walk on the paths of these two mountains?

Ideas are promises, and promises are promises. Just because of the previous delay, it was past noon 12 when we came out of the cable car station in Heishushan. If we want to realize our grand plan of "conquering" the two mountains before the cable car closes, we need to hurry up. The starting point of Heisha Mountain is the Alps Ring Road, which is a relatively gentle path. It is 1.4km long and 72 meters high, surrounded by majestic snow-capped mountains, and the beautiful scenery is unobstructed. Today, the weather is great, the sun is shining, the clouds are misty, and the snowy mountains and green lakes are even more eye-catching. Of course, the problem with walking on the top of the mountain is that the shade is hard to find. Walking under the eyes of the sun for a few hours will consume more water and test your strength and will.

Along the way, there are more and more mountain flowers on the hillside on both sides of the path, and then they form a piece on a hillside. Everyone can't help but stop and enjoy taking pictures. In July and August, the mountain flowers are in full bloom, which is a good time to enjoy them. Arnica, Partridge Foot, Ranunculus, West pask Flower, Sitka Valeriana, Arctic Lupine, Pink Mountain South, Indian Brush, Rhododendron (don't think I understand, the flower name comes from official website) and other different mountain flowers are in full bloom, which makes people dazzled. Halfway to the fork in the road where we need to go back, we continued to walk east along Bawang Road (3.7 kilometers one way, 62 meters high). I don't know why this path is called this name, but I think the mountain flowers next to it are denser and more colorful. We crossed a forest path, and a big stone was half blocked at the exit of the forest. Bypassing the stone, everyone's reaction was "wow", but when we saw a wide and cheerful place, a sea of flowers on a big slope was colorful against the blue sky, white clouds, snowy mountains and green forests. Everyone was ecstatic, filming, filming, hiding in the flowers and taking pictures of each other. Finally, the group simply picked up the selfie stick and took a 360-degree selfie. Just happy, a bird fell from the sky, circled around us and landed on the selfie stick. "Isn't this the grey Jay, Canada's national bird?" "Is it to entertain us?" "So cute, it dances on the selfie stick!" Before everyone woke up, another gray crow jumped on our heads and even landed on some people's heads. Of course, the brothers and sisters who won the lottery just giggled, haha, happy.

It took a long time, but it was also "played" by two birds for a long time, and the time was slightly delayed. Everyone cleaned up and continued on their way, and finally came to a small lake at the end of the path. The small lake is very shallow, with moving green waves, reflecting some dark mountains. There are some small flowers on the grass on the shore, so that the stones from east to west will not be lonely. It's already past noon, and everyone decided to have lunch here. That's a good idea. If you are in no hurry, you can enjoy a leisurely afternoon here. It's a pity that we have to hurry after lunch.

Return to the cable car station of Heisha Mountain and take the world-famous PEAK 2 PEAK cable car to Whistler Mountain. This cable car connecting Whistler Mountain and Heisha Mountain not only has the longest unsupported aerial ropeway system in the world (the unsupported part is 3.024 km/1.88 miles), but also has the highest distance from the ground, with a height of 465,438+. Besides, it is also the longest cable car system in the world! After a journey of 10 minutes, we can enjoy the scenery and have a rest. Next, there is another mountain waiting for us.

It was past three o'clock in the afternoon when we arrived at Whistler Mountain. We studied the length and time of the trail. Originally, it took four hours to walk on the Gaozhu Trail (9.5 kilometers long and 300 meters high), so the time to return to the cable car station was not very safe. So I decided to take a high-pitched trail (about 1/3), then turn into a semitone trail (1.2 km long and 220 meters high), cross the snow slopes of two ridges, and then return from the sidewalk (the Traverse RD of pika), where the journey is short and you can see the high snow walls piled up beside the road.

So I continued on my way, but before that, the invincible scenery killed a lot of time for taking pictures. There is no way. You will be infected when you are in it, because people around you have done some actions that you don't usually do, standing on a big stone with different crazy postures: a guy pressed his palm on the cliff, a guy piled a pile of stones and then kicked it over. Unfortunately, the kicking method is flawed, which wastes the time and expression of overlapping shots. We are still gentle, gather together and raise the gesture of victory. Haha, the earth is under our feet!

At first, it was a mountain road. It's easier to go up than down, and there are many stones on the road, so everyone walks cautiously halfway up the mountain. Then the trail finally became decent, the scenery was similar to that of Heisha Mountain, and there were more and more flowers in Caolian Mountain. Everyone is used to such beautiful scenery, but they are absorbed in the journey.

Gradually, I saw a touch of green at the foot of the mountain from the bushes. As we continue northward, the green under our feet gradually expands. Finally, on an observation deck, we can overlook the huge Qingshui Lake-Cheakamus Lake, which is a long and narrow lake shaped a bit like Peto Lake in Banff, except that Peto Lake has three claws. I walked along the path of Lake Chekams and looked at the lake on the shore. The lake is light green, with mountains reflected and trees lying across, which is very beautiful. Seen from the mountain, the color of the lake is much darker blue, which matches the color of the surrounding snow-capped mountains. We wandered all the way on this huge blue satin and walked along the mountainside, tired and happy.

The trail is starting to climb, and it's time to meet the test of uphill. Suddenly, the teammate who walked in front came back and said that he saw an animal. He gestured the size of the animal with some excitement and said it looked like a cat. We asked: Is it a bobcat? He couldn't say clearly, but someone picked up a stone just in case. Everyone walked forward, and sure enough they saw a fat figure. That's a fat cat. Oh, no, it's a fat mouse, a groundhog. Although it is fat, its skill is very agile. As soon as it saw the arrival of a large group of people, it immediately turned and slipped into the crevice and disappeared. The joy brought by the woodchuck was soon covered by the fatigue of climbing. In the last paragraph, everyone is wondering if they are going the wrong way. They took out the map and rummaged it several times, hehe.

Finally, we crossed the ridge and entered a somewhat desolate area, where there were many rocks and many places were still covered with snow. Some snow is pale pink, commonly known as "watermelon snow". At that time, I thought it was caused by the dyeing of nearby iron-bearing stones. Later, I looked it up on the Internet and found that red is caused by a kind of green algae called polar snow algae, so watermelon snow is also called "snow algae", which is a kind of snow with red or pink color and fresh watermelon flavor. Watermelon snow is redder after melting, like the color of red wine. This type of snow often appears in the mountains and polar regions all over the world in late spring or summer. Unfortunately, I didn't taste it at that time. You need to be extra careful when walking on snow during melting snow. If the snow below melts faster than above (for example, there is water below), a trap will be formed. No, two teammates have been "recruited" and stepped into the trap. Fortunately, people are fine and there is no danger!

Climbed another slope and finally saw the snow wall on the left side of the road. Everyone cheered at once, indicating that there was no wrong way and the end was in sight. We can't wait to approach the snow wall two or three meters high, and we are excited to start the selfie mode again. I felt something was wrong after walking for a while. How did I get up the mountain? Finally, we found the answer on a sign: we went the wrong way. We should have turned right to the west, but we were lured by the snow wall on the left. Fortunately, this section of the road is not very long, and there is still enough time to return to the cable car station, so everyone walks down the mountain along this sidewalk with easy steps. Only then did I find that the snow wall on the right is higher, at least six or seven meters high, which is very majestic and not inferior to the snow-capped mountains in the distance.

Everyone was very happy when we boarded the cable car. We walked 20 kilometers in 7 hours. At this moment, we can enjoy the beautiful scenery and process along the way while listening to music. What a cool word!