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Imagine waking up at two in the morning—the sun long since set and still hours from rising—and loading up your bag, skis and crampons to begin a trek up a 2,400-plus-metre mountain.
As you make the ascent through moonlit trails, you eventually reach the top of the peak, the sun beaming over the valleys of the Sea to Sky corridor below.
For climbing this mountain, the reward is fresh powder on un-skied terrain. You put on your skis with exhaustion and pride and make your way down the mountainside.
For most people, this is a full day, or a weekend excursion. For Ben Rowe, an Australian transplant to Whistler, it's just the beginning of the day, and there is still an eight-hour shift at work to tackle once he's packed his skis away again for the morning.
"I worked out that I'm kind of weird in that most people want a nice, relaxed start to the day before they go in. In contrast, I want to push it as much as I can," Rowe said.
"I love the uphill, which for some people is weird, but I get a thrill out of the exhaustion and tiredness just because it makes it all the more worth it."
Rowe shows off his adventures on TikTok, where he has amassed 15,000 followers and more than half a million likes. However, he was doing the pre-work adventuring long before he decided to post the videos on social media.
“I was doing it a lot, about a year ago, and people at work thought I was crazy for doing it. Then I started documenting it, because it's a unique and niche concept," he said.
Rowe has made his pre-work adventures a part of his daily routine, be it climbing a mountain, fitting in a ski day, or even running an entire marathon before his shift starts at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler.
"I actually did a marathon on Sunday and then went in and worked at five o'clock. It seems ridiculous, and when I'm working, I kind of hate my life while doing it, but it makes for a pretty interesting day before work,” Rowe said.
“I wanted to take advantage of my day, and I don't think enough people talk about the lifestyle you get to live in Whistler, and I was like, I'm gonna start making it a thing.
“At the Fairmont, I serve a lot of people that come here from all over the world, and for two weeks, they get to live the Whistler lifestyle. I get to do that every other day.”
In the wintertime, Rowe regularly climbed massive peaks like Mount Garibaldi to get in some backcountry skiing before work started.
On one of his adventures, he had a close call with an avalanche, reminding him of the dangers of pushing yourself to the limit.
"I finished work at midnight, had a window to ski in the Joffre area, and had maybe two hours of sleep. My alarm went off at 2:30 a.m., and at that point, I was pretty sleep-deprived ... You must be mindful of the conditions and constantly assess, but because I was a little bit sleep deprived, going off caffeine and motivation, I wasn't paying as much attention to what the surrounding areas were telling me.
"I wasn't paying attention to what the wind was doing with the snow, and we went a bit too far—farther than we thought we should. Luckily my buddy started to hammer home the point that we should start thinking about it."
The pair turned around, and "when we skied down, the area where we were at had a partial avalanche," Rowe said.
"So that was like a lesson for me to know there's a limit with this stuff, and you have to be kind of mentally on your toes ... as fun as it is to do these things before work, there can be consequences."
Rowe hopes his followers are inspired to get active, regardless of their day-to-day responsibilities.
"The goal is to inspire people to do stuff before you work. Just because we're working nine to five doesn't mean you can't get after it and take advantage of where we live," he said.
“That's kind of the whole point for me, to show people that just because you're working a full-time job doesn't mean you can't go on an adventure and explore and do cool things.”
If you think this kind of pre-work adventurous lifestyle sounds right for you, Rowe advises starting with minor adventures and working your way up to scaling mountains.
“Start with smaller activities first," he said. "Obviously, you want to come in and be productive at your job, so you can't go crazy off the bat. You must know your limits and take your nutrition seriously."
