Whistler Farmer's Market

With Summer in full swing it was great to see so much action at the Farmers Market today. For those that haven't checked it out this year, you'll be impressed to see a number of great new vendors and a great feel overall.

The market runs through the summer on Sunday's as well as the addition of the night market on Wednesday evenings. The Sunday market remains the major draw still as it was a packed house today right in front of Arbutus Routes.
It was a busy day overall with all the action at the market and a couple of Single-track Sampler Bike Tours today as well as lots of bike rentals heading out to explore the Whistler Valley.

Be sure to check out the markets on Sunday and Wednesday in the Upper Village as they seem to get better every year.

Singing Pass Trail Report

Quick Whistler Hiking Trail Report for Singing Pass as of July 24th:

-Some Blowdown across the trail, but nothing out of the ordinary
-Snow on the upper quarter of the trail as you climb up to Oboe Basin
-Bridge is out major creek (believe it is Harmony Creek)

Our group worked on a couple quick repairs for the bridge for temporary use as shown int he photo. There is a posting by BC Parks that they are aware of the bridge damage and I'm sure are figuring out the best plan of attack. The bridge is still usable, but does require some careful footwork in crossing.

Musical Bumps Backpacking

Lots of snow was going to be the name of the game for this adventure on the back of Whistler Mountain. It has been well documented with the snowfall we received in Whistler this winter and with a delayed start to our actual summer there was no doubt that there is still a truck load of snow up in the alpine.

With some of our Custom Whistler trips now in full swing for the season it was time for a guide trip out to the Musical Bumps to check the status of the Alpine. Destination for the crew was out to Russet Lake after crossing the snowy peaks of Piccolo, Flute, Oboe and Cowboy Ridge.

Travel was definitely snowy as shown in the photos, but still smooth sailing and much better than expected. At times we dropped our probes in the snowpack to reveal areas that were still over 2 meters deep and south facing aspects that were completely free of snow.

Summer has finally arrived and the guides at Arbutus are busy on the trail so come and join us to play in the mountains.

Whistler Multi-Sport with Biathlon

This week we have two families on tour to enjoy the Best of Whistler in a 7-Day Multi-sport trip. Great to see some familiar faces on tour as I was lucky enough to guide some of the group on our Okanagan Cycling and Wine Tasting trip just a few years ago.

With the great success of the Olympics we feel that it's really important to connect our guests with that success and try to relive some of the amazing action. New for this year is an extended visit up at Whistler Olympic Centre with a customized Biathlon for our guests.

Our Arbutus Routes guides were incredibly excited in putting this day together with the help from the Olympic centre staff as it was a huge hit. After an introduction of the event and the history of the Games our guests started out with biking the sprint loop and then settling into shooting the targets resting amongst the Olympic rings. The kids team seem to out-stride the Adult team without hesitation and picked up the Gold Medal in doing so.

It was a great addition to our trips and one that we are excited to share with future guests this season.

Sea to Sky Bike Challenge

This past weekend was a big one for mountain bike events around Whistler as the Sea to Sky Bike Challenge and BC Bike Race came through. The BCBR seems to dwarf the other events, but the Sea to Sky Bike Challenge is such as a great event and one that seems to have a strong following of riders that come back every year.

With the trail development that continues in the area these events are always treated to some new terrain and sections of trail. A group of us from Arbutus were up at Birkenhead Lake over the weekend, which was the start of the Sea to Sky Bike challenge, which then runs for 150 kms down to Squamish. For us it was a great time of camping, bocce, boating and checking out the local trails.

Attached is a photo from the trail that runs along the lake with Astrid and Colin sporting the new Arbutus Routes team jerseys. Overall this section of trail is pretty smooth travels with a couple good climbs and great views of the surrounding snow capped peaks.

This is definitely the season to get out there and check out all the local events as next up is a big one with Crankworx rolling into Whistler in the coming days. Always a great one for bike culture, product, races and talent hitting the trails.

Enjoy it!

Rainbow-Sproatt Flank trail ride

Finally, it feels like summer is actually here!! Making the most of the good weather, I took a visiting friend from home for a ride up the Rainbow-Sproatt Flank trail. We left Arbutus Routes on our Specialized Stumpjumpers and hit the valley trail for 10 minutes heading north to Alpine Meadows. After crossing the highway at the traffic lights, we commenced our climb. From the bottom of Alpine Way, it took us 45 minutes of near continuous climbing to reach the summit of our climb where we were at an elevation of 1100 meters

I love this ride on a clear day, it blows away the cobwebs and the reward is the fantastic views looking back across to the breath taking Whistler valley. After a sufficient break, taking time to snap some photos and enjoy the views, we started our descent down the 27 switchbacks. A great ride, awesome company, spectacular views. This ride can be ridden by yourself; alternatively it can be incorporated into a Singletrack Sampler bike tour, combining more of our epic singletrack mountain biking! Either way, hopefully this will give you some inspiration to get up there yourself!!

Hornby Island Riding

For years I have been hearing about the trails over on Hornby Island and finally had the chance to go and check them out. First off, the stories are all true and the riding is really that good.

Hornby Island is a bit of a trip from Whistler as you need to head down to Horseshoe Bay, across to Nanaimo, then drive up island to pick up two more ferries as you bounce over to Denman Island and then Hornby. Ends up being about half a day travel, but well worth it if you can stay for a couple days.

The weekend we picked turned out to be the race weekend, with an XC event on Saturday and the Super D on the Sunday. As you can imagine the local bike scene was incredibly welcoming in showing us the best trails to hit up as well as trying to convince us into racing in the coming days.

The main riding area where we were was up on Mount Jeffreys and a relatively small zone, but filled with a tonne of trails. The majority of them are really fast and flowy single-track with a couple additions for those looking for a more technical trail with options such as 'Yer Mom' and 'Freefall'. My personal favorite was the Slickrock trail, which you can also connect into from the Freefall above. Also of very worthy note is the 'No Horses' trail, which is the amazing trail that follows down a little canyon with the banked corners the whole way down and resting in an incredibly green and lush section of forest. We really wished we had a Fish-eye lens to capture the shape of the trail, but still hand a great time doing laps through this classic island trail.

Overall, Hornby offered some quality riding, a very relaxed scene and good island culture to wrap up the weekend. I will definitely be heading back and look to stay even longer next time.