A fair wind.

We have had an unexpectedly lovely day today. Unexpected as there was lots of low cloud when we arrived last night and we thought there would be rain.

It was cool to start and we explored the 'village' this morning whilst we waited for the washing! It was the Olympic Village for the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic games. The Olympic Plaza is interesting and it is quite pretty but very tourist shop orientated and we felt we wanted to get out, so having spotted some trails on our map we set out to explore the 'Valley Trail'. This went all around the Alta Lake.

It has to be said this was probably designed predominantly for cyclists but other people were walking it so off we went. Lovely wooded areas led down through some very exclusive housing near the lake shore. Some were stone and lots of glass and others made from traditional wooden shingles. Chris was very interested in the houses!

We realised that this was going to be further than planned but continued to the far side of the lake and this gave us the best views of the main mountains around Whistler.

This is taken from Rainbow Park a lakeside recreation area which had some very useful interpretive boards about local wildlife and the mountains themselves. Here is Blackcomb; you can see some of the ski runs and it is one of the mountains of the Fitzsimmons range, which are known as the Coast Mountains due to their close proximity to the sea. The Olympic 'Sliding Centre' was on Blackcomb.

The other main one is Whistler itself, just out of sight to the right which had the Olympic ski runs. I over heard a conversation this morning that it used to be called Mount London but when they were originally seeking out ski runs there were so many Marmots heard whistling up there they renamed it Whistler. No idea if that is true!

Behind the trees in the centre of the picture is Whistler village, a purpose built resort.

We were amazed at the confidence of these quite young children setting off across the lake in their little sailing boats. Great.

Back to the village after about 3 hours for well earned refreshments. We really enjoyed it but are now pooped. A lady in a shop reckoned we had walked at least 10K!