MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Winter Spring 2020

42 What followed was a ten-month journey pedalling an early ‘90s Rocky Mountain Blizzard through Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and into the heart of Siberia. “We had a buddy who was in the Estonian mafia and he was really worried about our safety,” Gary recalls. “Then he discovered what dirtbags we were and realized no one would bother us because we had nothing of value. Siberia was awesome—fully forested. One day we rolled into a village with wooden boardwalks and bought a bucket of potatoes and green onions off a babushka for ten cents. Our saddlebags were full so she laughed and suggested we stuff the potatoes in our spandex shorts.” After his biking partner bailed somewhere in Mongolia (“open steppe, rolling hills, a lot of bugs,”) Gary smuggled himself into the then- closed Fujian province of China before skipping over into Vietnam and Cambodia—which he’d heard to be littered with renegade Khmer Rouge, forgotten landmines and armed government checkpoints. “I didn’t know how they’d react to me but it turns out when you are a teenager with an AK-47, seeing a white guy in purple spandex riding up a dirt road in 40-degree heat is hilarious. They’d laugh and wave me through.” “One day, I hooked up with a Norwegian de-mining team who took me out into the field— that was absolutely terrifying. I was taking Barely Whistler photos by then so I had some good nude shots from Angkor Wat (SEE SIDEBAR). Then I paid some guys to smuggle me into Thailand in a boat because you were supposed to fly in and I couldn’t afford it. Finally, I got to do some climbing ten months after I’d set out on my ‘climbing trip’.” By 1996, Whistler was growing. The slow seasons were shortening, and Gary had found a reason to stay home in summer: along with friend Paul “Peanut” Carlson, and a select few rock climbers, Gary had discovered and begun developing a secret rock climbing crag just south of town. “I was cruising the highway in my bitchin’ 1980 yellow Camaro when I noticed some rock near the Cal-Cheak campground. Peanut and I went in on a cordless drill, along with a few others, and started putting up our own routes. It was cool to have our own zone close to town.” After bolting a bunch of routes in the most accessible area, Gary began exploring and noticed more climbs on the other side of the “I didn’t know how they’d react to me but it turns out when you are a teenage with an AK-47, seeing a white guy in purple spandex riding up a dirt road in 40-degree heat is hilarious.” BARELY WHISTLER In the summer of 1991, Gary started making postcards of his favourite mountain sports to earn extra cash without clocking into a real job. To stand out in an oversaturated market, he decided that the models in his photos should be naked—naked on skis, naked on chairlifts, naked on rock crags, bikes, rollerblading, at the bar—even on the golf course. Barely Whistler postcards were born. “It started when I did a slideshow of one of my trips and everyone had a laugh at these naked pics that kept showing up randomly,” Gary says. “Naked guys on bikes, naked hiking—and since it was a party, some drunk guy yelled out that I should make postcards. I woke up the next day and just ran with it. It was hard to get models at the beginning, but once people saw the postcards it was no problem.” Barely Whistler postcards were cheeky, but tasteful. In a sea of cookie cutter images of one-piece suits and alpenglow from every angle, Gary’s cards marked another small victory for Whistler’s counterculture in a town that was rapidly pushing in the other direction. –Trevor MacDonald PHOTOS COURTESY GARY MCFARLANE