This Is How You Bachelor Party

For my bachelor party I grabbed 5 of my groomsmen and Eric and headed to Whistler, BC for some epic mountain biking, drinking, and debauchery.  We polished off more alcohol than I thought possible and one of us returned with a shattered bone in need of surgery.  The details of our night of clubbing in the village will remain in Whistler, but if you'd like to read about the rest of the weekend and who got injured click the title and read on and make sure to watch the video at the end.....

Well, my big weekend was finally here!  Somehow I had convinced 5 of my 8 groomsmen and Eric to join me on a wild weekend in far away Whistler, BC.  This weekend had been months in the planning with Chris renting a massive house capable of 12 and Matt flying across the country to make it.  There would have been at least 3 more guys with us if DUI’s hadn’t prevented them from crossing the border.  I’m not sure what happened, but in the span of time since I used to cross the border with just my driver’s license telling the border patrol I was headed to Montreal for strippers and beer at the age of 18 and now laws had definitely changed.  Now the border required a valid passport, which was mandatory to scan, and if you had any DUI or federal conviction in the past 10 years there was no way our neighbor to the north was letting you in...  So, 6 of my favorite buddies saddled up, absorbed the cost of the others who couldn’t make it and joined me for one wild weekend.  

After picking Matt up from the airport on Thursday morning we joined up with Eric (after I sent him to the wrong Winco... whoops) and rode up with him after meeting the rest of the guys at our house who followed us.  We stopped for dinner south of Seattle and had a few beers on the way up and Matt kept me filled with swedish fish and constant drinks on the ride.  It was a longer drive than I had thought and we didn’t pull into our rental condo until about 12:30 in the morning.  It was definitely a pretty sweet place.  I was given the master bedroom upstairs all to myself which had a private deck, huge king bed, and tv.  The rest of the guys split up the bunk beds and rooms on the lower floor of the 3 story condo.

On Friday, after a good breakfast we headed down to the Whistler Bike Park and got geared up with body protection and Giant Reign bikes with 8” suspension front and rear.  The rain from the previous night had cleared out leaving the trails sticky and firm.  I had brought along my pressure suit for the day and of course got swatted in the chest and back by all the guys for doing so to test my structural integrity.  We headed up the Fitzsimmons lift from the base to start our day of mountain biking.  The chairlift took us over the the Canadian Open freestyle course which blew my mind.  They were building jumps that would send mountain bikers 15-20’ in the air to do flips and 720’s.  The sport of mountain biking has clearly been taken to a whole new level in the past few years.  

Holm was the only one who had ridden Whistler before so he became our guide.  The first trail we hit was called “crank it up” and it ended up being our favorite for the day, as well as the demise for several of us.  The trail was filled with table tops, bermed corners, wooden bridges, and jumps.  Thankfully it was broken up into a lower and upper section with plenty of room on the sides of the trail to rest.  This was much needed as I was surprised at how tired my arms got after just a couple runs on the trail.  The bike was heavy but controlling it through the turns and up and over the jumps was exhausting.  My legs, which are way stronger, were totally bored as we simply just jumped on the lift at the bottom barely had to peddle at all.  

On our last descent down crank it up at Kevin’s request before lunch we had our first spill.  Both Matt and Jason had brought along GoPros so they were filming on every run we took.  Matt had his on his helmet while Jason had his pointed backwards.  This worked out perfectly when Kevin, who was riding just behind Jason, took a massive endo and smeared himself all over the trail.  Holm, Matt and I were ahead on the trail and waiting at the intersection for lower crank it up when Scott rolled up and said Kevin had eatin’ it.  About 10 minutes later Kevin rolled up moaning and told us he thought he dislocated his shoulder but had popped it back in.  He was also covered in bruises.  

With Kevin’s injury we decided it was time for a lunch break and headed back to the rental house on our bikes.  There we had some snacks and glasses of bourbon while Kevin lay on the couch shirtless covered with bags of ice looking miserable.  Despite his injuries Kevin manned-up and headed back out with us around 2:30 for some more riding.  We considered heading up to the top of the peak but they were black diamonds up there and all of us just weren’t up to snuff so we stuck with the faster trails below that we could handle.  Coming around a corner on a new trail we were trying we came across a black bear with cubs crossing the trail.  We had a choice between hitting up a black diamond trail or trying to ride by the bears... we chose the latter and thankfully weren’t chased by the mother bear!  

When we first got back to the trails from lunch I was well aware that I had drank too much.  This of course gave me liquid courage and I began to hit the jumps harder and faster, really enjoying myself.  It was a miracle I didn’t crash as I was really pushing it.  Unfortunately, Jason wasn’t so lucky.  We had been getting progressively more tired throughout the afternoon and my arms were completely shot.  We had just taken a group shot of all of us at the top of the chairlift and had made it half way down crank it up when I pulled off the trail to rest and let others cruise by, including Jason.  After a minute or two breather for my arms I got back on the bike and quickly came across Jason standing up from a crash.  He looked fine... and calm...  Upon feeling his shoulder he looked at me with a casual face and said, “yup, I broke my collarbone”.  He said it so casually it took me feeling his shoulder to actually believe him.  Scott grabbed his bike and Jason slung himself up with his shirt and walked down the mountain to the base where we called over a first aid bike patrol woman who slung him up a bit better.

From there Jason ended up following the woman to the local hospital where he was x-rayed.  The photo of his doctor face-palming himself while looking at Jason’s x-ray is now one of my favorite photos.  Matt and Eric left to keep Jason company as well while the rest of us headed back to the house to start on dinner and continue drinking.  After a few hours Jason showed back up to the house with a full back and shoulder brace for support.  We had considered continuing our bike adventure as we didn’t need to return the bikes until 7pm but we were all so tired we took his broken bones as a bad sign and returned everything so we could relax at the house.  Next time I’m up there I’ll know to only rent a bike for a half day...

That night we simply chilled at the house and did our best to put a serious dent in the bourbon that everyone had brought.  The plan was for each guy to bring a different bottle so we could pick the ones we liked best for our wedding bourbon bar.. Unfortunately, we drank so much that by the end of the weekend at least I couldn’t remember what my favorites were.  I did take a photo though - we had - Tap 357 Maple Rye Whiskey, Makers Mark 46, Whipper Snapper, Corner Creek, Bulleit, Blantons, Copper Fox, and Woodford Reserve.  8 bottles for 7 of us and all got drank by the end of the weekend except a little of the Copper Creek.  That was of course on top of the multiple racks of beer and hundreds we spent at the bars on Saturday night...

After a long day of riding we enjoyed scarfing down pasta for dinner and hanging out at the house.  Jason was on pain meds and we were all pretty drunk and wanted to save a little bit of cash so we ended up playing cards and listening to music all night.  By 1am only Scott, Matt and Kevin were left awake so I took the time to do my usual antics and put cherries all over poor Scooter.  

On Saturday we didn’t really have any plans laid out.  After a relaxing morning at the house sleeping in we headed over to the Powerline disc golf course with beers in hand.  It was a tough course through the trees and as usual I sucked at disc golf.  To our amazement Jason again stepped up his manhood and played through the pain of his broken shoulder, which thankfully wasn’t on his throwing side.  It was a beautiful day and the surrounding snow-capped peaks were beautiful.  From our drive around the area it became clear just how big the Whistler-Blacomb ski area was.  We could see the sky tram that connected the peaks hanging thousands of feet above the valley between them.  

After disc golf we made a stop at a local liquor and beer store to re-stock and I picked out a bunch of really cool looking beers to try, only to be ambushed by Matt who insisted on paying for them at the checkout.  Matt and Holm combined really took care of me over the weekend.  We then drove around looking for a lake for Holm to set up the zip line had brought along for shinanigans.  Unfortunately, the area was just too touristy and the only lake we could have done it on was a long drive away.  Instead we cruised over to Lost Lake and the beach there just down the road.  We couldn’t find parking anywhere so a few of us just ran into the water, checked out the bikini-clad women and we headed back to the house to chill and cook dinner.

I wasn’t sure what we were going to have for dinner and was happily surprised to find that they had marinated some amazing tri-tip steak with potatoes.  I appropriately had my Ron Swanson shirt on as I began to dig in (Holm had his Mr. T shirt on).  We ate, played bottle caps on the porch and got our pre-game on hard at the house for several hours.  The view was incredible from our porch and I think only a couple of us even ended up using the hot tub that was out there.  By 9:45 we had drank almost all of the bourbon and whiskey we had brought and nearly all of the available beers we picked up earlier in the day.  McNeil was in rare form.  Time to head out....

As we headed down the road into town we were all making bets on how long Eric might last.  I’m not going to go into details of the night but I’ll point out a few fun facts.  1.  A super hot girl in the street convinced us to go into her bar called Tommy Africa’s.  Kevin also convinced her to buy us a round of shots to do so as we thought it was a scam.  Turns out they actually needed more guys with money in the bar because it was filled with beautiful ladies, mostly bachelor parties.  I must say I was completely shocked that this outdoor mecca and mountain biking heaven was filled with NYC style clubs, half naked go-go dancers and filled with beautiful young girls rather than a sausage fest of male bikers as I expected it to be.  It caught me off guard for sure.  The bachelorette we met with her ladies was named Andrea, appropriate for my bachelor party as every girl I’ve ever crushed on seriously (besides my future wife of course) has always been named Andrea.... 

The girls led us to several bars throughout the night and being as drunk as we were I have no idea how much money was spent between us but several of us seriously broke their banks.  Somewhere in the night we lost Eric.  He simply wandered off and apparently got pretty lost and had to climb in through a window of the condo to get in.  I was a little worried about him and it didn’t help that all the guys simply said, “forget it man, Eric’s dead!” to me.  Apparently, I was told we were leaving one bar and ran back in to get Kevin and Scott who I apparently dragged off the dance floor worried that we would leave them behind... which I guess seriously pissed off Kevin.  I then somehow wandered back in to look for other drunk friends in my delirium and didn’t come back out for 15 minutes or so which further pissed off Kev.  

Apparently, the only reason I was able to sneak back in was because the bouncers were busy with a fight that had broken out.  A fight between a couple people and some Pakistani’s that were acting like douche bags.  Earlier one had tried to pick a fight with Chris who promptly elbowed him to the floor and another had pushed Jason’s broken shoulder on purpose to which Jason aslo slapped the guy to the floor... they were asking for it.  I’m glad I hadn’t seen it or I perhaps would have ended up in jail.  That’s about the time when everything went dark for me.  I vaguely remember getting back to the house and finding Eric in his bed and giving him a big hug, getting tackled by Kevin at the house who I thought was starting a tickle fight... and watching Scott pass out shirtless on the couch.  

I woke up the next morning feeling like hell, as did the rest of us.  Thankfully the night before I had eaten “a slice of water” as I put it (watermelon) so I at least had some hydration and food in my stomach.  I decided to again eat a giant slice of watermelon and gnaw on the leftover tri-tip steak from the night before while everyone else had normal breakfasts.  Looking at the table I was shocked to see that we had finished nearly all the bourbon and all but a few of the beers in the cooler.  I then noticed lipstick all over the side of my face but it was clear it had been drawn there by a devious Holm rather than the lips of a young woman.

After a quick clean up we were out the door and headed back towards the U.S. by 11am.  Eric started driving but made it about 10 miles out of town before having to give up the wheel to Matt and taking the back seat to being his marathon puking into a gatorade bottle.  Chris also had to pull over for Jason who, screwed up on pain meds, was getting car sick in the car ahead of us.... this was gonna be a long ride home.  On the way out we had beautiful views of the surrounding peaks at a couple pullouts we stopped at, but Scott didn’t see anything as he was happily passed out in the backseat of Holms car.  As we made our way through Vancouver I made the bad mistake of looking in the rearview mirror as Eric dumped out his gatorade at several stop signs.  Thankfully he was able to pull his shit together at the border.  

We got back to Salmon Creek around 7-8pm to a very happy Emily to see me alive.  The guys left me with the extra food and meat and caught up with Emily a bit before heading back to Corvallis and leaving Matt with us who joined us for dinner at the Olive Garden before we had to take him to the airport for his flight home.  I can’t thank each of my buddies enough for one of the most amazing weekends of my life.  I knew it was a stretch to head all the way to Whistler and with one of us getting lost and one of shattering a bone in 2 places it certainly turned out to be an epic bachelor party that I’ll never forget.  It took both Eric and I two days to recover and I hope Danielle never sees how much money Scooter spent on Jagger Bombs.... :)