Have you ever looked at a professional athlete and wondered how you compare to them athletically? Well it turns out you could be a lot closer to your favourite athlete than you originally thought.
Philadelphia 76ers star Jimmy Butler proved just that when he attempted to climb the Stawamus Chief near Squamish last spring. Butler publicized his endeavours on a blog from his YouTube channel, in which he was hilariously overprepared for his hike.
José Azpiri from Evergreen Adventures was Butler’s tour guide while he was in the city.
“Jimmy wanted to be away from the big city, and he chose Vancouver because someone told him how beautiful the city was,” he told Global News. “He was just in Vancouver to do the Chief. He stayed a couple more days but he was here just for the hike.”
The video started off with the all-star purchasing, as Butler put it, all the “essentials and non-essentials” to hiking.
Some of his purchases included a knife.
“I’m out there with Sasquatch and we go toe to toe,” he said.
He also bought a Frisbee because “obviously you got to have that because you’re out there you’re going to get bored, think about ‘Castaway’ if he didn’t have that volleyball, he was done.”
Azpiri was flabbergasted watching Butler’s bill climb.
“I was like, ‘Wow I thought he was going to leave something behind but he ended up buying everything, he ended up spending probably more than five grand.”
As Butler neared the summit of the Chief, he looked out to where the Squamish River flows into the Strait of Georgia, instantly paralyzing him in fear.
While he was clutching onto a tree, Butler states that if he falls one way onto the rocks he’s dead and if he falls the other way into the water he’s dead because he can’t swim.
Of the trip Butler said, “That’s when my hiking trip ended when I knew at that moment in time I was one with nature. That’s why I’ll always ways say there is a first and a last time for everything because you don’t got to worry about me doing that again.”
One of the most memorable parts of the trip for Azpiri was watching the NBA star go about normal tasks and how grateful he was when some fans wanted to take a picture with him.
“Jimmy was hungry, we stopped in North Vancouver and we stopped at the Dairy Queen,” he said. ‘They got off and got some burgers, some high school students were walking by and one of them recognized him. You could see their faces after they took a picture with Jimmy, it really made their day.”