Mountain Time

After 40 days working under amidst the delirious haze of a climate controlled, artificially lit studio, we decided to head straight to Whistler. Having not looked at anything naturally lit except the tables bouncing sunlight set outside during half hour lunch breaks, it was a shock to see that I had somehow completely bypassed spring. Sometime over the course of filming a show, it is suddenly summer. There was no more need for pants nor hoodies, but instead, sunscreen and bug spray were now in season.

Truth be told, I didn’t know anything about what we were doing. If there had been a plan, I was not entirely made aware of it. All I knew in the car ride up was that we were going to hike some mountain or another at some time or another. As it turned out, our rendezvous included melancholic musician Lachlan, and quick witted Evan. This was unfamiliar turf for me — both the locale and company.

We arrived in the afternoon, a burst of hot 33°C air hit me in the face as I opened the car door. We were quickly on our way on a walk with Solen carrying 10 beers in his backpack. I didn’t really ask any questions, I enjoyed going with the flow, watching everyone else devour an amount of beer that would be fatal for me. Sometimes, the lack of extraneous information did not indeed impact the quality of enjoyment, as long as someone knew the way, it was quite fine with me.

Having next to no knowledge of Whistler, I was surprised to find that it was in fact, quite cute. Far from its winter fame as a place for skiing and Australian hot tub enthusiasts, it was riddled with quaint spots for swimming and lounging with a backdrop that looked like what I imagined the Swiss Alps to look like. It felt like all I was missing were some cows or yaks, and a cute white aproned dress to twirl in. But very quickly, the sound of music started to emanate from Lachlan and his guitar.

We ended up on a small dock on a lake that reminded me so much of Sweden that I had some kind of feeling I could not put words to. It was like my object permanence included that of seasons — I forgot summer existed. I had forgotten that it was possible to bask, and frolic, and burn, and sit sloppily in the grass while paying no mind to how dirty my clothes might get. I forgot what it was like to expose skin to the elements and not immediately feel the cold or rain. It was in essence, very pleasant.

For the first time in a long time, I didn’t even want to look at my phone nor have the urge to pull it out of my pocket, despite promising Evan that a ridiculous tattoo of a car that’s also a skull exists out there somewhere, and I would find it to show him. We could find skull-car later. In that moment, I wanted to drink in the concoction of vitamin D, nostalgia, and awe. I spent so many months shit talking the Pacific Northwest that it was extremely out of character for me to say, “Hey, this is kind of cute.”

Despite how inviting the water looked, I didn’t take a dip. Maybe I should have, but in that moment, I was content sitting on a bench and watching people’s various activities. That and the idea of getting wet for a quick swim then having to walk back with a wet bathing suit under my clothes seemed unappealing. Instead, I just lounged.

Lachlan chatted up a lady to see if she knew about this mythical pipe he had been looking for. This alleged pipe was somewhere in the area, and people jumped off of it into the water below. He had a 5 second video but no coordinates, a vague memory of having been there before, and no one seemed to know what he was talking about.

Even after we packed up to walk back, he wanted to go find that pipe. It would become his fixation over the entire weekend, to a point where we couldn’t tell if it was a bit or not. We promised we would go find the pipe, eventually.

We went to Whistler Village for dinner, at a place called Stinky’s. As we sat outside and waited for our food, chatting about what our fursonas would be (Evan - raccoon, Solen - cat, Lachlan who had no idea what a fursona was - wolf) I spotted a faded upside down pineapple sticker on the restaurant sign. All at once, the four of us were filled with excitement that we somehow found out a secret that was not meant for us. Evan immediately started Googling swingers in Whistler, but came up with nothing substantial.

After the meal, Lachlan asked our server if she knew about the pipe. She did not, but the owner came out a few moments later and handed us a slip of paper with a street name written on it. He said that was where the pipe was, but also advised against us jumping and swimming there.

In the end, we didn’t know if Stinky’s was a swinger’s restaurant, or if the street name we were handed was indeed where the pipe was. Evan surmised that perhaps, they had no idea where the pipe was and simply handed us an invitation to become part of the swing community. We didn’t verify any of the above, we simply walked back to home base because at this point, the boys had finished all 10 beers plus one more each at dinner.

On the way back, I spied something that I found to be profoundly beautiful. All the fountains and canals in the village contained milky opalescent water, which I later found out to be called glacial milk. It’s the kind of water I imagine to only appear in dreams, paintings, or Tarkovsky films.

I thought back to when I was a child, and would dissolve entire bars of soap during bath time to get the same look of half opaque ghostly water. I never achieved it as my soap bar privileges were revoked after a few attempts. Also, my mom refused to let me pour milk into the tub, but I digress.

Glacial milk is made when glaciers melt, they grind against rocks and pulverize them into fine powder. As the water trickles down from the mountain top, carrying rock powder, this is what you get: a hauntingly gorgeous mystical pool.

The next day was when we took the hour drive north to hike Joffrey Lake. Whenever Solen says a hike is chill, I have my immediate doubts as I lack the muscle tone and testosterone to run up a mountain like it was a Sunday evening stroll. Yet, we’ve already done a few that felt stupidly vertical, and were objectively not easy hikes. Going up to Joffrey Lake with three boys made it immediately evident that in order to achieve that level of ease, I would have to work out a hell of a lot harder regularly, and maybe snort protein powder with every meal. While I was gasping for oxygen, they were puffing on a vape. It’s fine.

There were three lakes to see on this adventure, we skipped the first one and went straight for the second. As we reached a clearing to see the turquoise lake after a hot sunny ascend full of rocks and dry powdery dirt, it was something quite spectacular — the color of the water was unreal in contrast to the dull path we had been on. There’s something about the hues, saturation, and opacity of the water I saw in the past few days that mystified me. Or, maybe things simply appeared to be more beautiful when you worked hard to see them. As much as I wanted to dive in, I knew there was another lake and another ascend. I didn’t want to go up heavy and wet.

The space between the second and third lakes were not as treacherous as the first segment. Also, there was a pretty waterfall in-between. There was a spot to perch and touch the water to cool off, and be mesmerized by the kinetic splashes that sounded so hypnotic. At this point I was tired enough to not listen to nonsense guy talk and ready to zone out to the sound of the waterfall. I lost track of their conversations on the way up, all I knew of for sure, was that Lachlan wanted to go find that pipe afterwards.

When we got to the third lake and dipped our hands in, it was notably colder than the lake below. I didn’t do more than dip my legs in, but Solen and Lachlan jumped right in, and swam for a total of 2 minutes before getting out to be warmed by the sun. It was icy as we watched a lady in a leopard bikini jump in and swim out further than anyone else there. She was the true lake champion that day. We began our descent after idling on the rocks for a bit and eating our protein bars. At some point, I want to come back and hang out more by the water, and maybe swim at last.

I would make the case that the third lake was the most menacing (surrounded by jagged rocks) yet peaceful (less people), and the second lake was the most aesthetically pleasing. Of course, we had to go see the first lake that we skipped over earlier, and that lake got disqualified in the favorite lakes ranking because we were attacked by mosquitoes as soon as we got there.

After we departed from the trailhead, Lachlan drove us to Pemberton where he remembered a restaurant he had eaten at years ago. He could not stop raving about the bangers and mash, which sounded like it was composed of foods I wouldn’t even touch with someone else’s mouth.

All in all, we ate our fair share of carbs and fats and felt way better for it. As for me, I couldn’t believe how much it cost to eat what seemed like regular pub food up north. My first inclination was to order some kind of a paneer dish, but then decided it was not worth $40 and went with onion rings instead. Deep fried crunchy and salty was what my post hike choice. Meanwhile, Lachlan got his bangers and mash, Evan got a giant poutine, and Solen got an impossible burger.

As we were paying our bills, Lachlan once again asked the server if he knew about the pipe. I guess whatever was written on the piece of paper from Stinky’s had been left at the house, and no one could remember the name of the street.

Unfortunately, he had no idea what Lachlan was talking about. I guessed that he wasn’t a swinger looking to recruit after all.

But as we got back into the car, Lachlan was determined. He drove us through some roads that I couldn’t point to on a map, and suddenly pulled into the parking lot of a trailhead. That was it, as much as we didn’t believe there was an actual pipe, he had found it. In fact, the parking lot was paved on top of the elusive pipe.

There was a spark in Lachlan’s eyes that I have yet to see on this trip, or perhaps ever in the short time that I’ve known him. He was so excited that he took the towel out of the trunk and speed walked down a steep hill to get to the banks right next to the pipe. All three of them ran down the steep loosely soiled hill, and I took a vague path around to meet them by the water.

There it was, a pair of men’s underwear hanging on a branch (not from any of us) and the pipe shooting water violently out of its mouth. I suppose the swinger’s mysterious warning had to do with how rapid the water was. But who left their underwear? At this point, Whistler was just full of swinger jokes writing themselves.

We decided that if any one jumped off that pipe, we might never see them again. And so as we stood there and watched water come out of the pipe, I got bitten six times by mosquitoes. Two of those which were on my face. I had enough of this stupid pipe dream, and headed back to the car.

While none of us asked, we do believe that Lachlan was finally satisfied by how we managed to find the pipe after all. The rest of the night, he chomped away at sushi, then some pizza. I would say he had a pretty good time.

We slept there for another night, and woke up in the morning to clean up the place and get ready to leave. By this time I managed to find a picture of skull-car, and Evan wanted it as a tattoo, despite its objective ugliness.

Evan had a long day of driving back to town and then to the airport to pick up his brother, Lachlan had to go to work, and Solen and I took a small detour at Brandywine Falls.

It was a short getaway over all, but I needed it. Mosquito bites still itching as I write this, I can say that my first extended Whistler trip was magical good fun, from the enigma of the alleged swingers to aesthetic waters to searching for a pipe that 3/4 of us doubted even existed, I learned something valuable: hanging out with chill people makes for a chill time. At no moment did I feel unwelcome or awkward or pressured to entertain. I truly wish I had friends like these when I was younger.

Also, I have a newfound appreciation for high elevations, even if there were no yaks.