Day 11 - Whistler to Clearwater

Today was all about driving. To get from Whistler to Jasper (a distance of 750km) in one day would require a 9 hour drive, so we decided to split the journey into two. Today was part one of that journey – a lovely 6 hour, 400km drive to Alpine Meadows Resort near the middle-of-nowhere town of Clearwater, BC.

We got up and checked out of our lovely Whistler Hotel. Before checking out of the hotel, Laura adopted a monster called Schubert. He now lives with us and has been enjoying our roadtrip.

After getting recommendations from the hotel receptionist for breakfast places, we totally ignored her and instead bought four pastries and cakes from a nearby bakery. Ooops. We sat in the Olympic Park and ate two of them and drank our tea and coffee.

We got on the road soon after (a bit later than planned) and started our long drive. The scenery already was very impressive. We took the roof off the Jeep and basked in the sun as we drove over mountain passes and along winding roads in a vaguely north-westerly direction.

Ski runs heading down into Whistler village

The mountains in the Garibaldi Provincial Park were lovely and even the horribly named Joffree Lake seemed nice.

We passed a lovely lake with some logs in and a view back to the peaks of Garibalidi.

The landscape slowly changed and after a few hours it became more barren and dry. After passing a small town called Lillooet, we saw a temporary sign warning of temporary road closures ahead. There was no way around, so we had no choice but to carry on.

When we rounded a bend 15km later, we joined a small queue of 7 or 8 cars waiting behind a man with a stop/go sign. Ah, this must be it. The sign said the road was open on even-numbered hours, and as it was 2.45pm we thought it was odd that it wasn’t open now. 

When the guy spoke to me, he explained that the sign means the road is closed for 2 hours and opens every even numbered hour. Shit. So it was closed now until 4pm. And then closed straight after that until 6pm. The road needed to be closed to fix a landslide.

Well, what’s worse than being stuck in the middle of nowhere for over an hour in the baking sun, with no food? Being stuck in the middle of nowhere in the baking sun, with no feed and a full bladder! Doh! Er, so that situation needed to resolve itself. Walking back up the hill, past the queuing cars didn’t work because the landscape was so barren there were no rocks or bushes to provide, er, cover. (Laura: …and this is why, whenever the chance arises, I go to the toilet. I didn’t have a full bladder this time.)

So I walked down the hill, past the cars (again) and then along a very quiet railway track for 5 minutes until I was able to find some solace. Hurrah! Mission accomplished! Back at the car Laura wondered what had taken so long (but only a bit because she’d been having a nap).

At 4.00pm traffic started coming towards us on the other side of the road – hurrah! the road was open! – but it took 15 minutes for it all to get through so it was 4.15pm before we moved. 90 minutes of waiting. As Laura will attest, I’m not a particularly patient person… Grrr. I could have been jumping in lakes or rivers!

Our ETA at Alpine Meadows was now 7.38pm – oh dear! We wanted to get there and enjoy it, so we pressed on and continued our journey. We ate trail mix to keep us going and decided that if we saw somewhere we could stop and get food quite quickly, we would, otherwise we’d try and make it through to dinner and eat at the restaurant at the resort.

The sat nav had us going on a weird route for the last part of the journey, going past our resort and then back down, so as we approached another place-you’ve-never-heard-of town called Barriere, we used the route we recalled from when we planned the journey and turned off the highway.

Immediately there was a sign saying “Alpine Meadows Resort this way”, so that was a relief, but by now it was 6.30pm and we were both tired and hungry. The paved road quickly became a gravel road and civilisation became sparse. According to my calculations the resort was still about 35km away. 



We continued down the gravel road and after a while it became apparent that we hadn't seen another car for about half an hour.

The road got a bit narrower and a bit rougher. At this point we saw another sign saying, “Alpine Meadows Resort, 20km” which was both good and bad. Good because we were definitely on the right road (not that we doubted it that much) but bad because it was still another 20km along this road.

At one point we went past a resort (read: run down cabin, clapped out RV and a tarpaulin) called Dunn Lake Resort and I don’t joke when I tell you that it looked like the scene from a horror movie where the synopsis is “Two women on a road trip around Canada turned down the wrong road and get more than they expect when they spend the night at Dunn Lake Resort…”

Eventually (and I stress that eventually was 7.35pm) we crested a hill and saw an oasis in the middle of the wilderness on the other side of a lake – hurrah! Within a few minutes we arrived at the very large gates of Alpine Meadows Resort and were directed to proceed to the restaurant to check in (the office was now closed). We did so and were relieved to see that they did have our reservation and that we weren’t the last ones to arrive (we were third to last). The German looking lady asked it we wanted dinner and that the last seating was at 8.00pm. We said definitely and decided to make a quick pitstop at our cabin to get jeans on (we were both wearing very short shorts).

The log cabin was wonderful, set in a spacious resort over looking a lake. The walls were made of actual, huge logs and it was just lovely.

At 7.50pm we got back to the restaurant and sat outside so that we could enjoy the lake view. Hummingbird feeders were set up by the porch and we spent ages watching the tiny birds feed on the sugar water. They were very cute.

The restaurant

The food at the restaurant was fantastic – a lot better than we were expecting – and we were both glad that we hadn’t found somewhere to eat on the way. We gobbled down three courses and watched the hummingbirds some more. After dinner, we walked back via the lake and saw a beaver swimming across.

In our cabin we had a cup of tea, enjoyed the view and then went to bed, relieved that we weren't staying at Dunn Lake Resort!