Northwest tour 2008

Seems like it all went by like a flash but here I am, back home from one of the more fun road trips I have done in my life. Although several plans were put on hold and many improvisations were put into place, it still ended up being good times. It started off on Wednesday the 31st in Orange County where we packed Wes' dad's Honda Civic up (I mean PACKED) and prepared our passports, bikes, snowboards and luggage for a 1.5 week journey that would take us up California, through Oregon, Washington and finally into British Colombia, Canada. We left Orange County at around 8pm, Wes forgot his cell phone so we turned back to get it...luckily we were only a few exits up the freeway when he realized this! Anyway, we drove up the 5 with little delay, avoiding LA traffic and getting past Sacramento and into the northern part of the state by 2am. We stopped somewhere south of Redding, CA where Wes met his dream girl at the local McDonalds. We took the usual 2-hour power nap and proceeded into the lovely state of Oregon. Upon crossing the border Wes got a little love letter from the local OHP We headed up to Portland where we checked into the Holiday Inn (seriously). What was cool is that we could see the towering image of Mt. Hood where we were to snowboard later in the trip. We decided to head into the city via the "MAX" which is their version of the metro or trolley.
The city was pretty nice, clean and there were really no homeless people...a bit different from San Diego and Los Angeles. We walked around for hours checking out all the stuff, spreading the word about CON clothing and looking for a place to eat. We hopped on the MAX again and headed to our one-star accommodations on the North end of town. In the morning we got on the road again and headed North towards Seattle. It was real cloudy and almost raining, a huge contrast from the previous day which seemed like the temps were in the high 80's!! We hung around Seattle for some hours then realized that we had another 10 hours to Whistler since the main road had been closed due to a rock-slide!@ We got back into the Civic and headed to Canada!
From Seattle we went North to Bellingham where we veered east off the 5 onto rural highways which lead to Canada. The landscape was pretty flat up until we crossed into British Colombia where the coastal mountains rise up pretty impressively (gnar-like). But we had no idea what this alternate route to Whistler had in store for us. It was the gnarliest highway I had been on in awhile, and I have been on some pretty gnarly roads. Constant threat from rock slides, one-lane sections, one-lane wooden bridges (as in wooden planks) , 15% grades and thousand foot cliffs were only the half of it. We finally rolled into Whistler at around midnight and we could not be more stoked. We quickly found Dan & Steph's condo and settled into our Ski-shed (room). The next morning was prime for sleeping-in and we did so, I quickly got the urge to go check out the mountain, Wes the same so we headed over to the main area where the bike park was located (Whistler Village). This place was unreal, it was almost like a dream seeing the famous site of the Whistler bike park in real life...seriously. Anyway, I feel like I am straggling and I am getting tired of typing so I will cliff-note it a bit...
We scored free lift tickets thanks to Distilled Magazine and headed up the hill for the first time on Friday afternoon, awesome. A-line was everything I had dreamed except the lips were steeper and the gaps were smaller than I imagined. Second day, sweet. Up the lift 3 times, 3d run up on Garbanzo my frame decides to fail. Epic Fail. Now what? I had 2 more days planned of riding and this shit happens? great. Call a mountain patrol guy who takes me and my useless piece of aluminum down the hill. Call it a day and devise a plan for the next week and a half we have on the road. I decide to rent a bike the next day, a 50 something pound Rocky Mountain that needed some upgrades before it was enjoyable to ride. It was good, and I had a good time on it.