Girls are made with sugar and spice and everything nice. But no one ever added broken bones, blood and stitches to that nursery rhyme. This story unfolds right here in our hometown. We all know a Whistler girl with battle scars.

Whistler attracts and breeds a different kind of girl. The kind that is strong, confident and physically exceptional. The type of gal that will hurl herself off a booter, only to crash horrendously and then pick herself right back up and do it all again.

During the winter, our bruises and aches are bundled up beneath toques and puffy jackets, warm wooly socks and hoodies. But summertime is when we Whistler ladies let the battle wounds shine in all their glory.

You can tell a Whistler girl by the way she sports her bikini alongside a series of bike wounds – or a cast if she’s had a particularly bad fall.

She may smash her face whilst hucking on Freight Train in the bike park, or bail on River Runs Through It cross country trail – only to have her hefty pedals bury themselves deep in her calf. Or a rock may decide to take a nice slice out of some pound of flesh.

Perhaps this Whistler girl is recovering from a few broken bones – a few sticks and stones may have gotten in the way.

I recently up with local bike park shred Lula Darquier, who cut her teeth on Women’s Night in the Whistler Mountain Bike Park and now hits the more advanced and competitive Phat Wednesday race series on a regular basis. Recently, A-Line took her down with a painful break in her upper arm. While she wasn’t sporting a cast – the break was too awkward for that. You could tell she was favouring her arm, but there were no visible scars.

“For me, I’ve got nothing else but motivation to get back into the bike park. I see everyone else biking and I think ‘why can’t I be there?’” says Lula, a self-professed adrenaline junky.

“You have to suck it up and get back on your bike and forget that we are so fragile and just slowly build up to where you were before – until you feel like you can push it again.”

At the time, I chatted with Lula she’d only be out for a few weeks and was determined to get back on her bike before the end of the season, spending her time paying visits to Whistler’s many saintly healing practitioners on her road to recovery.

Biking is only the tip of the battle scar iceberg. Here in Whistler there are a million and one action sports for a gal to draw blood on – including the new Roller Derby league (which I’m excited to be part of).

I’m proud of this long lineage of battle-wound-clad women: strong, beautiful, and unafraid to sport their wounds as an accessory. Never letting the stitches and broken bones get in the way of living the dream.