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PHOTO: YVONNE JEFFERY
Travel
By Yvonne Jeffery
Out on a Limb
The Whistler Mountaineer rail trip travels
from Vancouver straight to adventure
Iam standing in a tree that soars eight storeys above
Fitzsimmons Creek in Whistler, British Columbia, and if
anyone was to ask (no one did), I’m absolutely, 100 per
cent convinced that I cannot step off it into thin air.
Now, don’t get me wrong. The cedar platform in the
tree is massively sturdy.And the thin air bit? I won’t get anywhere
close to the platform’s edge without being harnessed
to a zipline with several layers of safety features and
backups built in. Really, this no-effort, just-step-off-andenjoy-the
ride adventure should be easy.The last time I was
on a zipline was back in the bad old days of military training:it
was dark,I was cold and tired,and the only thing pre-
May 2008 • 43 • Fifty-Five Plus Magazine
venting me from an embarrassing splashdown in the
Petawawa River and an ignominious pickup from the safety
boat was my own two hands. I made it that time, I tell
myself, so what’s the problem now?
Well, call it 17 years of becoming increasingly aware of
the toll that time takes on a body, but between my heart
chattering in my chest and my stomach somewhere around
my knees, this body’s not buying the self-talk that says
winging my way from tree to tree on a wire at speeds up to
75 kilometres per hour is a really good idea.
Frankly, this trip started out in a much more civilized
and relaxed way in the Glacier Dome coach of the Whistler
The Whistler
Mountaineer’s Andrea
Wickham-Foxwell
proves that ziplining
really is huge fun.