Sea to Sky Highway

We drove around Birch Bay and Draydon Harbor one last time in Blaine. The tide was in. We love the water. Then we crossed the border into Canada. We traveled on Hwy 99 through Vancouver up the Sea to Sky Highway. From the Vancover, BC side we could see Vancouver Island across the Strait of Georgia. The Strait of Georgia has these huge islands that are literally mountains in the water. It was awesome.

Next we stopped at the Britannia Copper Mine and took a tour. It was an exceptional mining tour. We got to ride in a train on the rails through the mine. Next they showed us how early miners hammered the rock by hand to get the ore. They operated several of the air pressure driven drills that were invented later. Then they operated a mucking machine that throws the rocks over the top of the machine into a bin. The Britannia Cooper Mine was the largest copper mine in the world. It also produced gold and silver. It was the first mining tour that we have been on where they operated the equipment.

We continued on the Sea to Sky Highway after lunch. The mountain and water views are spectacular. We walked down to the Brandywine Falls. We stopped for the night in Whistler, BC. It was the site of the 2010 Winter Olympics. We are going to check out the site of the Olympics this evening.

Tomorrow we will finish the Sea to Sky Highway. From here we head towards Cache Creek on Canada Hwy 1. Mileposts, which we are using for this trip, warns of sharp switch backs and 14% grades. I will be a little nervous.