ZipTrek Ecotours

[CACAdmin]

Has anyone gone on one of the ZipTrek Ecotours at Whistler? I've been planning to go since they opened many years ago and hopefully will go this summer. (It was relatively inexpensive years ago but prices have gone up with popularity, of course. :rolleyes: )

If you have gone, which tour did you choose (the Bear Tour or the Eagle Tour?) The site states that the Eagle Tour has more walking (trail, boardwalk, stairs and suspesion bridges) than the Bear Tour. However, neither states how far you're expected to walk.

About how far do you walk and how steep are the trails? I'd like to know as I was hoping to accompany a friend who isn't able to walk for very long distances (especially if the trail is steep). Any info would be appreciated.

[hp10BII]

No experience with the ziplines up at Whistler, so I can't help you there. My only experience with Ziptrek is across Robson Square. :laugh:

Let me know how it goes, we might do it as a family in a year or 2.

[CACAdmin]

So you were one of ones who waited patiently in line for hours at Robson Square, were you? Was it worth the wait?

[hp10BII]

The missus scouted the area the day before, it was a little bit rainy and the organizers said it was a 3 hour wait. We thought "We could do that", so decided to take the kids out of school and arrived 10 min before 9am to wait in line. Ziplines didn't open up till 10am but a little after 9am, we saw the first few liners go off - they happened to do a private shoot for the NBC morning Olympic show, so the show's hosts got to do a news piece without the wait and lineups. We were hopeful.

It was cold that morning, but amazingly sunny so bigger lineups than what anybody anticipated. One of the volunteers came by and said that from this point in the line, it would probably be a 5 hour wait. OK, a 5 hour wait, we could do that.

From what I recollect, if the ziplines are moving along, they can do about 80 people/hour. In reality, it is about 60 p/h. On our day it was more like 40 p/h. Too many people standing on the edge and just couldn't/wouldn't let go and take that leap of faith...

More than 5 hours into it, there's no way we can give up now. Kids are out of school, the grownups given up a day of work, there's no turning back now. We had a couple of people from Philadelphia behind us, they gave up after 3 hours - they were only in town for a few days so they didn't want to spend too much time in lineups.

7 hours into it, someone passing by offered $100 to give up there place in line. No takers. $200. Nope. I was waiting for $500, but that offer never came. I don't think the rest of the family would give up their place for any amount for less than $1K, but I was starting to waver for way less....

Finally our turn, 20 minutes to sign your life away (waivers) and get strapped in, less than 15 secs to cross Robson Square. Unharnessed and freedom again by 5pm. I'm too embarassed to post how many hours it took from start to finish (that's not the point!), but was it worth it for a regular 15 sec glide? I would say not. But throw in the fact that it's in Robson Square, probably once in a lifetime Olympic celebration activity, I would grudgingly say yes. Any other venue, we would have to wait about 4-5 hours anyways.

[CACAdmin]

Wow! You have way more patience than I would have had. Hence, why I didn't try it at Robson Square.