A run, a beach and stops along the way to Whistler with kids (Rainbow Park, Whistler, BC)

The North Face Whistler run is becoming a bit of a family tradition; this is the 2nd time we’ve headed up north to run the 10km and the kid’ run and hang out with friends and once again we had a wonderful time. This time we stayed at the Sundial hotel, and it was perfectly family-friendly. We had a spacious one bedroom room overlooking the mountain with a handy kitchen and we loved watching the mountain bikers speed down the hill. (It has a freezer too so it was easy to pick up some locally made mojito Lucia gelato to eat at night when the kids went to bed!)  We also stopped at a place called Rainbow Park for the first time and I’ll tell you more about that later too!

We took a leisurely pace on the drive up on the way to Whistler (the traffic was pretty bad through Vancouver that day) and our favorite stops between Whistler and Seattle were at the Edaleen dairy in Blaine, and a waterfall in Squamish called Shannon Falls where we could stretch our feet.  It is so important to stop every so often on a road-trip with kids and these stops helped break up the journey and made the trip more enjoyable for everyone.

We’ve also stopped at Horshoe Bay Park before and it’s gorgeous and there is a great playground there too! And next time we want to do the Sea to Sky Gondola because I’ve heard it’s amazing but this time we were arriving a little too late.  At another stop the kids entertained themselves by taking our picture (x a million!) and it was nice to get a picture with just me and the hubby again.

The run itself was a pretty steep and challenging one but it’s beautiful and the after race party is so perfect. There is music and food and fun activities for the kids and people just lounge and hang out for hours and the kids love running the 1km.

I was really impressed with how the run organizers do not use the usual mountains of plastic water bottles I’ve seen at so many other runs for this run; instead, at the end of the race we all received water filled sports bottles and Brita water had people walked around the village refilling our bottles with cold filtered water.

After the run, our friends took us to Rainbow Park and I’ve never thought of hanging out at a beach in Whistler, but sure enough on the shore of Alta lake there is a sandy spot where the kids bravely waded into the water while we snacked and hung out on the grass nearby.  There are so many amazing things to do in Whistler and I can’t believe that each time we go up we find new things to do.  This run has become one of our favorite traditions and I can’t wait to run it again next year.  Do you do destination runs with your family?  Do you have a favorite kids’ run? (I know my guys would love to hear.)  And if you’ve traveled from Seattle to Whistler do you have any favorite stops on the way to Whistler with kids in the summer?

Terumi

Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys.  She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live.  She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)