This past weekend we traveled up to Whistler B.C. for our last Spartan event of the year. The "Super" held on Sunday would give us both our double Trifecta's (two Trifecta's in one calendar year). It was a double weekend as well, the Sprint was on Saturday. My husband did both events. He's tough.
As we drove on Highway 1 in B.C. we crossed over a fantastic "cable-stayed" bridge - the Port Mann bridge. (If you click on the link you'll see a photo of the entire bridge.)
We drove past the Stawamus Chief, it was difficult to see all of it due to the low clouds.
We stopped in Whistler before going to our campground, it's always nice to find the venue before race day. We walked all over and couldn't find any signs saying there was a Spartan event even being held there. I had received an email from Spartan that day with a map of where the shuttle buses would be. The map was of such low resolution we couldn't read any road signs when it was zoomed to a larger image and no address was given for the shuttle location. We asked at the visitor center just steps away from a bus parking area that we had found and asked them if they knew anything about the event or if this was where the shuttle was for the event. They didn't know anything about the event. Too bad Spartan really dropped the ball on that one. *We found out later that Spartan wasn't allowed to post any signs before the event. We drove to where the event address was and we did find the festival area, so now at least we knew where the parking lots were and where the event was we just needed to figure out the shuttle area on Saturday morning. We discovered that the course would be on Blackcomb mtn. The weekends events were part of the Mountain series, so we expected to be going uphill quite abit.
We drove on up highway 99 for about 18 more miles and found our campground.
As we drove in I noticed this bear sign so I took a photo of it. It is a record of when a bear has been spotted in the campground last. A bear had been sighted just the day before we got there.
We settled in to our camp site, ate dinner and my husband got his things ready for the next day.
A nice fire before bed.
I spotted this nice large Maple leaf on the road near our camp. The season is beginning it's turn to fall.
We arrived at the parking lot in Whistler hoping that some shuttle bus signs had been posted by Spartan. No luck, we didn't find any. We did however see alot of people asking if anyone knew where the shuttle bus lot was. We told them our suspected idea and sure enough the standard Spartan "school" buses were waiting for us near the visitor information area. We boarded the bus and found our way to the registration tents.
My husband stands ready for his Sprint in a nice dry warm tent as the rain fell outside.
The course map. The green route is the Trail run, the red route is the Sprint, the blue route is the Super and the orange route is the kids course. The obstacle list for the Sprint and Super are on the left side of the map.
A bridge walk for us to get to the festival and for the finishers the go under as they finished the course.
A bit wet and muddy in the festival area. A nice Spartan reflection in the puddle.
My husband is going over the start wall,
and his start wave has begun.
The clouds would roll in and it would rain and then it would lighten just abit. It never completely cleared though.
Finally I spotted him coming up the last slope.
A quick hello and thumbs up!
Heading under the bridge I was standing on.
On to the last 2 obstacles.
The Monkey bars
and the dunk wall.
Finishing!
Getting his finisher Fitaid, banana and shirt.
My husband's official event photos:
After we left the event's shuttle buses, we couldn't help but notice that the Spartan signs were now visible. Too bad they weren't there before the Sprint started. Oh well, enough complaining about that. The people that would be arriving for the Super would now know where to go on Sunday.
I spied another colorful fall leaf on the ground as we walked to our car.
We ate a nice warm meal at Whistler before driving back towards our campground. If you ever are able to eat at Caramba! I highly recommend it.
Before settling in for the night we decided to drive the 2 km past our campground and check out Pemberton. It was a nice small town. There was a music gathering in this building in town.
Time to head back to camp and get our things ready for the next day's Super.
I'm glad we have a shelter to be in when the weather is icky. We had a heater and lights when we were in it, so it was quite cozy. The rain left a nice little river on the campground road. It poured rain all night long. We sleep in our Van, I'm not a fan of rain falling on a metal roof all night long.
I was happy we had signs to the shuttle area, simple pleasures of my day!
I was also happy because today I felt good, I hadn't been feeling well for a couple of weeks. I've learned that black tea sipped slowly does wonders for the system, who knew?!
Our shuttle bus.
Our official event photos:
The closer I got to the finish line the more I became a blubbering mess, I was happy that I'd completed the course better than I had for the Beast in Seattle, even though the course basically took us straight up the Blackcomb mtn. ski area. My brain and my body held up really well until the pipe tube crawl near the end, then I had my first leg cramp. I couldn't believe I was finishing such a hard course and getting my second double trifecta. We both got one last year as well. Lots of thoughts and feelings hit me hard at the end of this event. A fitting way to complete our Spartan season for the year, I think.
The girl at the end who gave us our medals was so sweet, she gave us the biggest hug.
My proud to be a Spartan face at it's best. Ha!! My husband on the other hand went through both days very well as you can tell by his happy grin.
Double Trifecta completed in Whistler, B.C. for us both.
Relive video of our route:
Elevation profile of the course:
Garmin stats:
9.11 miles
3340 feet ascent
3428 feet descent
Double Trifecta complete!
Double Trifecta medal and my Mountain Series Super medal with freebie Spartan sunglasses souvenir....so fitting for the weather.
The view out of the shuttle bus before we left the venue. Pouring rain, of course.
By the time we got down the hill and ate our dinner at Caramba! again, the sky opened up and we could gaze up at the ski hill we'd just gone up. Spectacular timing.
At night we enjoyed a nice hot fire and some Patrick McManus read aloud by my husband.
The next morning we drove to Pemberton for breakfast. I noticed a large bear sign on the visitor center so of course I had to check it out.
A good notice to pay attention to.
We went back to camp and packed up. We did a short scenic drive to an Olympic venue before leaving the Whistler area. Unfortunately it was closed but a pretty drive anyway.
Our drive back down the hwy led us on the Cultural Journey interpretive kiosk route on the Ski to Sky highway. We stopped at one of the kiosks to read the signs. I found it very interesting, here is an article about how and why the route and signs were created - https://www.squamishchief.com/news/local-news/cultural-journey-increases-nations-visibility-1.1110437.
Such a fun and full weekend of travelling in our neighboring country and taking part in the first Spartan event held in Whistler.
Yes, we are Spartans, Aroo!
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