Victoria (BC) – Whistler (BC) | 250 km
What a superb road the Sea to Sky Highway is, especially on such a magnificent day! I found myself immobilized for 30 minutes in a traffic jam, which gave me plenty of time to admire rock walls so steep they almost give you vertigo.
This road perfectly illustrates what differentiates a trip to Canada from a journey in Europe. The landscape offers breathtaking, winding passes, but it is also obvious that certain sections are precarious, totally at the mercy of the rock’s solidity. In Europe, a tunnel would likely have been built a long time ago. In fact, the road was recently closed for nearly a week following a major rockslide that blocked both lanes and destroyed the railway line. It is an impressive place, but certainly one of the riskiest parts of the route.
As Vancouver prepares to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, the road is a massive construction site. Near Squamish, we had been at a complete standstill for over 30 minutes when a superb BMW 650GS Dakar passed me on the gravel shoulder. What a wake-up call! Realizing I was also on a motorcycle, I set off in pursuit—even though I was on a much larger machine, loaded with luggage and a passenger!
Thanks to this maneuver, we bypassed several kilometers of stationary cars to reach the only open lane. A good 30 minutes gained! It was honestly quite fun.
