Tips and Tricks for Canada 2023

This was the first time in years I'd flown inside Canada. I used Google Flights to find what I thought were reasonably cheap flights and booked them. This was a mistake. Two of my flights were changed out from under me with unacceptable times, both of which required cancellation and rebooking directly with the airline (Westjet), costing much more than the original Google Flights price.  Lesson: don't trust any intermediary sites and always book directly with the airline. The one flight that didn't require rebooking was booked with United using frequent flyer miles. This has never happened to me during transcontinental trips.

Parks Canada now requires a shuttle reservation for Lake Moraine. Last minute tickets open up 2 days before the day you want to visit and you have to jump on it at 8:00am. The website is designed for computer use rather than mobile use, so you want a real web browser and click on the last tab on the reservation page (labeled Day Use). You need the early shuttle if you're going to do a long hike, so plan accordingly. In retrospect a 3rd long hike on the trip probably wouldn't have gone over well, so I guess I shouldn't have been so ambitious.

You should not use the Whistler-Blackcomb website to book lodging. I naively thought that I could get a package deal with lodging, bike rentals, lessons all in one place. The only way that could work is if you bought a Season Pass, which you'd have to stay at Whistler for more than 10 days to justify. Instead, book your lodging on AirBnB, and then book your bike passes, bike rentals, and lessons separately from the website. It's probably a good idea to rent bikes rather than bring your own on the plane unless you already have a downhill capable bike (living in the Bay Area all our bikes are uphill capable rather than downhill capable).

The DFX kids lessons are hit or miss. On the first day, they got an instructor who was willing to push them and let them do more challenging trails. On the next two days they got conservative instructors who weren't as willing to let them challenge themselves. Knowing what I know now, I'd have gone for 1 day of DFX, and then hired a private instructor on an as needed basis afterwards. On the other hand, I needed that first day of instruction so I could ride with Brad on the second day.

Once you're in the park itself Creekside is way quieter and has far shorter lines as well as a better loading experience than the Village Gondola. It's well worth the detour to use Creekside.

Skylynx is potentially cheaper than renting a car, but you take 3 hours to get to Whistler instead of 2. Having said that, if you had a family of 4 it doesn't end up being any cheaper to take the shuttle rather than rent a car.

Plan for a break after a couple of days or 3 days of cycling at the park. Your hands will need it. Bring a bike mount for your watch because if you have a heavy watch it will chafe your wrists. That probably also means  you need to bring a separate HRM. I did not expect downhill MTB to be so different but it was a good new experience. Left to myself I probably wouldn't do it again --- the bike park is expensive as are the bike rentals --- I'd rather be road touring. But Bowen loves it!

Bowen was never interested in skiing but he loved downhill MTB. I was very glad we did this trip because Bowen discovered a sport that he liked! Days after we got back from the park, he's playing with stuffed animals with his brothers, and they're calling out the names of the park trails they've ridden. He looks at the map of the park that Brad got for us, and he talks about the trails and looks them up and watches youtube videos of people riding those trails. I never would have imagined that he'd have gotten into the sport this much.