Don't miss the Callaghan Valley near Whistler for great cross country skiing

by Keith and Heather Nicol    

The Day Lodge is impressive

We recently had a chance to ski some of the Olympic cross country ski trails at the Whistler Olympic Park in the Callaghan Valley near Whistler, B.C. and were bowled over with the scenery and great skiing conditions. Despite the general lack of snow in this area, the skiing at Whistler Olympic Park was very good and they had lots of trails open for both snowshoeing and cross country skiing. Our first trip was on Friday, January 3 and we were lucky be able to be shown some of the trails by our neice Sandra and her husband Scott. They also had baby Erik in tow in the chariot and our first trail was Sandra’s favourite- the Olympic Biathlon loop. We also skied the Neverland trail which is ideal for beginners since it is quite flat. We loved day lodge and the views of the surrounding mountains were impressive. 

Heather skis in front of the Olympic Rings

 

 

Scott pulling son Erik in the chariot

      We enjoyed skiing there so much that we returned with our daughter Kristie and her boyfriend, Eric on Sunday, January 5. Again the weather was perfect and it was an ideal day for skiing with temperatures just below freezing. One of the distinctive programmes for this area is its biathlon programme which takes advantage of the Olympic biathlon facility. We took part in the 30 minute “Experience Biathlon” session and although it wasn’t hard to hit the grapefruit sized targets from the prone position it was much harder to hit the plum sized targets that you would normally shoot at from this position. And this is without doing any skiing to get your heart rate up and chest heaving. Another nice feature of this area is the dog trails and we liked skiing on these trails since they were relatively flat and had amazing views. When we were there there were 64 km of cross country ski trail open and 13 km of snowshoe trails available.We just sampled a small portion of the trails available and vowed to come back to seeing this incredible facility on another trip. For more information see: www.skicallaghan.com 

 Instructor Bill Moore showed us the basics of shooting in the biathlon range

Kids can slide at the base of the Olympic Ski Jumps

The scenery is stunning in the Callaghan Valley

 

Kristie skis in front of a warm up hut