Travel: 🇨🇦 Canada, going west! part 5 🍁

From Jasper National Park we planned to go west. A lot of people told me that Whistler is a place I should visit and since we want to go to Vancouver Island. This would be on our way heading west. Whistler was maybe a bit to far for one day, so we decided to take it easy, enjoy the view and stop where we want to stop.

First stop, mount Robson visitor center.

Blue river

A few hours south west of Jasper is Blue river. All the way towards blue river, we saw huge billboards with their special wildlife tours, both on land and water. My girlfriend was dying to see a new bear and I was hoping for eagles. There are several ways to do a tour. We choose the slow catamaran boat plus a much quicker swamp boat. Both were about an hour and would take us to two different areas.
The Catamaran was slow and silent. Really slow.. And it was really hot! I mean crazy hot for us. We felt like burning on that boat. The guide was really quiet as he searched for wild life. Then my ADHD vision as I call it turned on (all that happens in the corner of my eyes, will be noticed). I have an eye for these things because about four hundred meters away I spotted a bald eagle on the other side of the lake whilst I never seen a bald eagle in my life. He turned the boat and headed towards the eagle. I have to apologize for the photos, but the sun wasn't working in my favor.
special thanks to @guchtere for upgrading my photos

This is the other wildlife we spotted:
An Osprey! I only knew the brand Osprey and never actually thought about it. It was my first and it was amazing to see a bird like this cruising threw the air. Nice and peacefully! The guide told us that the bird can grow to 180cm in length across the wings. This particular one was almost fullgrown.

Black bears! Yes, not one but two was the score of the day. I can't explain in words how awesome it was seeing a small black bear climbing down a tree. At first we thought he was falling, but soon enough we saw it wasn't a drop but a climb down fully under control. Fun fact: Did you know that black bear give birth during their hibernation. This means that they wake up to their new born, fully fed cubs.

And this is just a small piece of nature they live in:

Clearwater

After a pretty successful tour threw the wilderness of Blue river we jumped in the car for more kilometres. One thing was about to be certain, Whistler was to far for this day. So we found a spot in Clearwater which is right next to national park Wells Gray and was promised to be pretty and less crowded. We booked a spot on a actual campsite and jumped in Dutch lake which is just below Wells Gray. The campsite looked really good, because it has its own golftrack. What a better way to end a relaxing day with a game of golf? However, it had one teeny tiny problem. And I mean a lot of teeny tiny problems. Mosquitoes!!! We have had them before, but these were monsters. I was hoping to play a game of golf while we're at it, but this was impossible due to these crazy creatures.
Needless to say we left the next morning, hoping Whistler would be better of.

Helmckenfalls, Wells Gray

Whistler

And it was!!! Whistler is a perfect spot for nature/sport lovers who love to spent time on two weels or flying threw the woods on a thick iron cable. Unfortunately my camerabag does not contain any extreme sport action cams or a drone.
Whistler is one of the city's hosting the winter Olympics in 2010. The facility hosted the biathlon, cross-country skiing, Nordic combined, and ski jumping. During summer it is an open paradise for everything that goes up- and downhill.
Watching movies online, learned me that Whistler was a sweetspot for downhill mountainbiking. So whilst my gf sad at the beginning of the gondola, I got myself a cool looking bike and gave it a try. I'm used to do regular mountainbiking and I'm not afraid to go fast at all. This however, was different and showed me how difficult it was more the once. Ambulances where standing by as I killed the blue en red tracks downhill! A small jump felt like meters mid-air!
No injury's, no accidents. Just tons of fun!

---

Next stop will be Vancouver and Vancouver Island! Hope to see you there.

---

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Leave a comment, resteem and upvote this post. It is highly appreciated.

Or check out my previous post about Canada:
Canada part 1: https://steemit.com/travelfeed/@dboontje/travel-van-life-is-wicked
Canada part 2: https://steemit.com/travelfeed/@dboontje/travel-banff-national-park-and-it-s-lakes
Canada part 3: https://steemit.com/travelfeed/@dboontje/travel-canda-jasper-national-park-wildlife
Canada part 4: https://steemit.com/travelfeed/@dboontje/travel-jasper-beware-of-the-cold-with-32-c