A low, hush-blue light sits over Howe Sound as the minivan slips north out of Vancouver. The Sea-to-Sky Highway unfurls—sheer granite dropping to the fjord on one side, old-growth forest climbing on the other—while a guide sketches the day: Stanley Park’s seawall, a mist-smeared Shannon Falls, a stop at Britannia Beach, and then the cable-straight line of the Peak 2 Peak gondola that stitches Whistler and Blackcomb. By the time the village appears, puffing steam from rooftop chimneys, the mountains have rearranged themselves into a skyline of ridges and cornices daring you to look closer.