Four Seasons Whistler

After Four Seasons Vancouver, we headed up the Sea to Sky Highway to the adventure mecca that is Whistler. Shannon Falls is pictured here:

Now it was time to experience Four Seasons Whistler.

Our “fam” trip included the amazing Jeremy Tanner, Rachelle Lucas, Carrie Vitt,  Annie Fitz Simmons, Eric Ries, Jen Grant and Julie Marsh. We had tours of all the facilities to give us both the regular and behind-the-scenes experience. We would walk around looking similar to this:

Were were then taken by some of the nicest people in the world to some of the most well-designed and extravagant hotel settings I’ve ever seen. I would describe it as the architectural equivalent of a mountain man dating a socialite. We walked over to the private residences at Whister, which is like the hotel but includes kitchens and is more homely if you’re staying for a longer period of time with a large group. The decor is in Water, Fire or Earth.

The Fire Kitchen in the private residences at Whistler:

Compare that to the Water theme:

I love both, but the calm feeling of the water won me over.

The sunset over the hot tub was one to remember.

We were the type of group that took pictures of every meal, room, bed and new friend we could find.

A trip to this country is not complete without getting up on the mountain. I love snowboarding, but it’s generally something I only do when there are big powder days. I never learned to deal with ice, which has ruined more than one night with pains from falls. I had the chance to take a lesson and really enjoyed learning the mechanics of how to rip on ice – and how to hold my crying after the hard falls.

The terrain on Whistler is notoriously the most challenging in North America. I generally glide down blacks but found myself walking down a section of a random black-turned-ice luge. There is an amazing amount of terrain (check out the map).

The Peak to Peak Gondola is something you just have to experience. A freak engineering triumph takes you over 3k from mountain to mountain over 400 meters from the valley floor.

After a day of snowboarding (one in which they both picked up and dropped off my gear on the mountain) we were treated to a spa experience in the Whistler Spa. For the first time in my life I received a facial. After the initial soothing scrub and the “Why are you hurting me?” extraction experience, I fell asleep with a scalp massage. Who knew? Relaxed and overstimulated with the experience I was having, it was time for dinner.

We dined at Sidecut Steakhouse. For the previous few days Chef Tory Martindale had been interacting with us on Twitter about the steps he was taking, such as adding dry rubs to the famed steaks. The meal was hyped. Heavily hyped. It lived up to every bit of it. Add this to your “must go to” restaurants.

A full photoset of just that meal can be found here.

So good.

The whole experience was too good to be true. If you go to Four Seasons, there is a stress-free feeling you get. Everything is taken care of, thought of, brilliantly executed and presented. If you have not had the chance, take a night and treat yourself. Annie said her love of hotels stemmed from a realization that a hotel enables someone to become someone else for a day. An adventuring traveler. A sophisticated couple. A foodie vacationer. You can go back and experience your life with a different beat, a different drum.

I want to thank everyone that made the experience so special. Not one to ever forget.