Soaking in a silent spa in Whistler

Today we took an organised tour to Whistler, spending a few hours soaking in a silent Scandinavian spa.

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Thanks to me, we’re almost late for our pick up at the Blue Horizon Hotel. I’d gotten the wrong pick up time stuck in my head, only thinking to double-check the email as we rode the lift down to the foyer at 8.22 am. Instead of leaving 13-minutes early, with plenty of time to get a coffee from Starbucks across the road, we now only had 3 minutes to get to our pick up point, Argh!

Our tour bus, a black minibus, is waiting for us as we arrive out of breath, apologetic, and bang on time, but coffeeless. “No worries,” our guide says as we climb on board. “Only three of you today.” Phew. The only other passenger is a teacher from Australia, Megan. She’s living in Canada on a 12-month exchange programme and, like us, only in Vancouver for a week.

As we shed our winter paraphernalia – hats, gloves, scarves, and jackets – our tour guide explains our morning itinerary. Coffee at the small township of Horseshoe Bay is our first stop – yay! After that, we’ll stop a few more times for photos before heading on to Whistler itself, where we’ll have about four hours to ourselves. He hands out maps of Whistler village, pointing out a couple of activities which he sells tickets. We ask about getting up to the Scandinave Spa, explaining that we have a paid booking. “Oh, I’ll take you up there and pick you up later,” he says.

Our second stop of the morning at Porteau gives us a view of the snow-capped mountains across Howe Sound. The car park asphalt is slippery with black ice, our breath steaming ahead of us as we totter out of the van and snap a few shots in the morning chill. Megan regales us with stories of Saskatchewan’s minus 52 degree days. “No snow days there, only no-bus days,” she says. “Sometimes only 6-7 kids show up to class. We’ve had five no-bus days already!” We’re all wondering how the poor Saskatchewan teacher that she’s exchanged with is handling the 42-degree heat of small-town NSW!

Fifteen minutes later we stop at Shannon Falls, a sheer rock face of sedately cascading water and ice sculptures which our guide explains usually roars and mists during the summer months. Again, we gingerly navigate the icy pathway and briefly take snaps of each other in front of the falls. On the walk up there, I’m angrily chattered at by a resident Grey squirrel, annoyed by the disruption to his morning absolutions – sadly, no photos as my phone picks that precise moment to seize up!

As we return to the car, I unsuccessfully attempt to get rid of my empty coffee cup in a nearby rubbish bin, the steel lid stuck due to the ice. I guiltily shove it in the open hole for recycling instead. Our guide does the same with his cup, explaining that the bins are critter-proof, designed to ensure bears and raccoons don’t get into the habit of using them as food sources. He jokes, “Today they’re also human-proof.”

Back in the mini-bus, our guide spends the rest of our trip to Whistler talking about the local Black bear population. Interesting fact: a female bear come out of hibernation in March/April with one thing on her mind – finding a hot boy bear and getting it on. With that done, her next job is to eat, and eat, and eat, and get as fat as possible over the summer months. Only when she’s hefty enough will the fertilised egg inside her actually activate, and only once she’s dug out the side of a river bed, or a hollow tree stump and gotten herself snug and warm, ready to hibernate through the winter again, will the egg start growing into a baby bear.

About a month into her nap, she’ll wake up to give birth – producing an ugly, pink, hairless blob about the size of a housecat, which she maneuvers onto one of her teets and then promptly goes back to sleep. Four months later, depleted of fat, she wakes up to a cute, rambunctious, furry, baby bear ready to venture out. She then spends the next two seasons teaching her baby what’s good to eat and drink, how to make a bed for the winter, and how to rapidly climb trees and stay hidden from dangerous males bears, who would kill a little bear in order to get Mum pregnant again.

Sadly, all the bears are hibernating at this time of year – so no bear sightings for us this trip!

We arrive at Whistler just after 11 am. Our guide does a quick circuit around the main areas of the village, pointing out various landmarks, and showing us where he will drop us off and where he will spend the rest of the 4 hours, in case we need him. Back at the drop-off point, Megan heads off to the Gondola while the guide takes us to the CWM to pick up our discount tickets for the spa. It’s located at the far end of the Village Stroll, in the Carlton Lodge basement – we would never have found it on our own!

Tickets collected, we’re back in the mini-bus as he drives us 10 minutes out of town and up a snow-covered hill. We check-in, agreeing to the no-device, no-photos, and silence-at-all-times rules, and collect our towels, robe, and locker key. Suited and robed we make our way out to the pools. The idea is to start in one of the steaming, hot pools, soaking for about 12-15 minutes, and then take a 3-second icy plunge into one of the smaller pools, followed by 10-20 minutes meditative relaxation in a sauna, steam room, or solarium. There are several areas like this to choose from. Joining the robed figures moving silently from one area to another, we manage to repeat this process three times, over the course of the next 90 minutes.

Staying silent around Michayla was harder than I expected. Several times I had to stop myself from turning to her and sharing an observation. Clearly, I’d be total shit at one of those silent retreat thingies. Surprisingly, Michayla seems to have no trouble staying silent around me!

Just before 2pm, we change back into our winter layers and met our guide in the car park. Ten minutes later we were back at the drop-off point and hunting for lunch – a friend of ours who lived here recommended we dine at the Irish pub, which we find just across from the main ski-lift. A rare sunny day means the outside tables are packed with skiers. Inside we find a table, order our meal, and spend an hour gossiping over clam chowder, chicken wings, steak and Guinness pie, hot apple cider, and mulled wine. Yum!

Our final hour is spent perusing the stores of Whistler Village. For a place built just ahead of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, it still looks weirdly new and shiny. We talk about what it must be like living and working here as a resort employee. Probably a lot like living in Queenstown, where you’re surrounded by fancy hotels, high-end shops and financially flush celebrities and tourists, only to go home to basic, communal accommodation shared with 10 other resort workers, all of you paid less than New Zealand’s minimum wage.

Just before 4pm, we realise our wanderings have now taken us further from the pick-up point that we thought. Having left our map in the mini-bus, we ask for directions and then briskly stride back to the central car park, once again arriving out of breath, apologetic, and bang on time. “Our trip back,” our tour guide says, “will be quicker, with only 1-2 optional photo stops. And you’ll hear a lot less from me.”

Nap time, methinks. We’re done-in by all that soaking, plunging, steaming, sauna-ing, and solarium-ing.

By 6pm we’re back in Vancouver, said good-bye to Megan and our guide, and reached our apartment. We both collapse on our beds, too exhausted to eat, eventually turning out our lights and enjoying an early night.

Photos: @kaylacle and @sidalscapes