Whistler: beyond your wildest winter dreams
Whistler is a place of superlatives with the largest skiable terrain, longest ski season and longest lift-serviced vertical in North America. The resort is also deemed, by both experts and visitors alike, as the best family destination and top Canadian resort. The impressive statistics, amenities and offerings of this unique mountain resort have been recognised with an amazing array of awards and accolades. And yet there are still many people who are just starting to hear about the size, diversity and international appeal of this spectacular resort.
Whistler Blackcomb - our backyard, our anchor
We are anchored to and defined by Whistler and Blackcomb mountains. They are the epicentre of our alpine culture and the mountains that ring our town. Whistler Blackcomb is the most visited ski resort in North America (more than two million skier visits per year), with the largest terrain, the most vertical drop, dozens of lifts, two mountains, and lots and lots of snow. And now, the two mountains are linked at their tops by the world record-breaking PEAK 2 PEAK Gondola. Whistler Blackcomb is our backyard - the lifts extend right down into Whistler Village and Whistler Creekside.
And yet, for all that activity, Whistler Blackcomb easily and frequently provides moments of alpine serenity. Have lunch on the deck at the Crystal Hut on a sunny day: it's a sublime experience.
In 2010, Whistler Blackcomb was the venue for the men's and women's Olympic and Paralympic alpine skiing disciplines of Downhill, Super-G, Giant Slalom, Slalom and Super Combined. The men's downhill took place on the Dave Murray course, while the women's downhill and all Paralympic alpine skiing events took place on a newly designed race course on Wildcard and mid to lower Franz's Trail.
Experience the Afterglow of the 2010 Winter Games
With its record breaking snowfall and the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games; winter 2009.2010 will go down in the history books as one of the most memorable Whistler seasons yet. But, skiers and riders are already dreaming of another epic season for 2011.12.
This year, guests can experience Whistler's three Winter Games venues, including Whistler Blackcomb's famous Dave Murray Downhill and Women's Downhill Olympic courses. These are the courses where dreams were made and broken; personal records were broken; and heroes were born. Ski the runs for yourself to taste the afterglow of the 2010 Winter Games.
Deep Winter Photo Challenge (January 2010)
This grassroots photography competition, which takes place each January during the stormiest of winter months, is heading into its fifth year.
Between five and six of the world's top ski and snowboard photographers are invited to Whistler Blackcomb to shoot with athlete teams for three days. Their mission? To capture the essence of storm season and mountain culture. They then have one day to edit their best shots into a slideshow, which is played at an evening event in front of a live audience and judged by a panel of industry experts.
Deep Winter, which started off in its first year at a 250-person venue, has grown significantly and is now held in the 1,000-person capacity McDonald Ballroom in the Fairmont Chateau Whistler.
The event has been so popular that it has inspired the Saint Deep Summer Photo Challenge, which takes place during Kokanee Crankworx - a world renowned mountain bike festival that takes place in Whistler every August. www.deepwinterphoto.com
Whistler Blackcomb debuts the PEAK 2 PEAK Gondola
Groundbreaking. Innovative. An engineering marvel. Few projects can share such accolades - even fewer can live up to them. December 12, 2008 was the day Whistler Blackcomb's highly anticipated PEAK 2 PEAK Gondola, united the two towering mountain peaks that define this destination. This daring project has revolutionized the visitor experience on the mountain. Need some stats? How about 17 (the number of engineers dedicated to the project), 4,344 (the total cubic metres of concrete utilized in the construction), and 28 (the line-up of Swiss-designed Sky Cabins that will boast a bird's eye view of Fitsimmon's Valley at 436 metres or 1,430 feet below - the highest lift of its kind). If those figures fail to impress, then take a moment to mull the expanse to be traversed. Spanning 4.4 kilometres (2.73 miles) in total distance from mountain to mountain, the Doppelmayr 3S tri-cable gondola is the world's longest unsupported span of 3.024 kilometres (1.88 miles) between the furthest length of the two towers. Total ride time is 11 marvel-filled minutes, with a lift capacity of 4,100 passengers per hour. And did we mention that two of the Sky Cabins boast glass bottoms? You'll be hard pressed to keep your eye to the sky with the views, literally, underfoot. And while winter welcomes skiers with greater access and even more opportunity to carve tracks in a single day, summer is sure to prove no less spectacular. Either way, Whistler Blackcomb is set to soar. www.peak2peakgondola.com
Getting a handle on Whistler Blackcomb’s terrain
Whistler Blackcomb is a big place, but to help people get a handle on it, former ski patrollers Brian Finestone and Kevin Hodder came up with the Ski & Snowboard Guide to Whistler Blackcomb - Intermediate edition. Baby sister to 2004's Advanced/Expert version, this pocket-sized guide gives more detail than even Whistler Blackcomb's colourful and free trail maps can, with special icons summarizing each run. Finestone, who now works as terrain park manager at Whistler Blackcomb, and Hodder, who was a special adviser to the TV series Survivor, reveal secret runs and trails that locals seem to know. Another and more social way to get your bearings in the 8000-plus hectares (over 27 square miles) of ski area is to take a free tour with the Mountain Host program. Running daily on both mountains, staffed by local volunteers who are impassioned skiers, and offered at green, blue and black ability levels, it's a great first-day orientation.
Winter backcountry offers vast untracked terrain
Ski touring, off-piste, iceclimbing: Whistler's backcountry experience is expansive, offering plenty of terrain for seasoned backcountry enthusiasts and for off-piste skiers looking for new ways to explore the Coast Mountains. Guides who have tracked these peaks and slopes as part of their backyard show guests their favourite hidden powder stashes and untracked valleys. Heli-skiing/boarding is offered on many nearby glaciers and powder fields in the Coast Mountains, the world's most glaciated mountain range. Guided off-piste skiing/snowboarding is also offered on Whistler Blackcomb slopes. Extremely Canadian offers one- or multi-day ski clinics for intermediate to advanced skiers. Instructors are professional skiers, and the clinics challenge clients in a relaxed and friendly social atmosphere. Guided ice climbing tours are available for all levels of climbers who want to ascend local frozen waterfalls.
Ski school instructors – the stories behind the pros
Canada Ski Council stats consistently indicate that ski instructors are the highest-rated service personnel for "Guest Satisfaction". Tourism Whistler's resort surveys bear it out - guests who take a ski lesson rate their holiday experience as off the charts. And there are as many kinds of instructors as there are skiers out there. Whistler veteran sixtysomething ski pro Stu Armstrong is a former social worker who used to work on the streets of Saskatoon and Vancouver, rides horses in the summer, and has been awarded Most Valuable Pro more times than he can count. Aussie ski pro Suzie Black has been linking back-to-back winters (Canadian with Australian) for over ten years. And if off-piste is what you want, Extremely Canadian's crew of freeskiers can take you to the hidden power stashes. Guide Derek Foose has also parlayed his passion into the Whistler Freeride Team, a youth skiing clinic every weekend throughout the winter that offers an alternative to ski racing as a method of ongoing skill development and competition. His athletes, still in high school, are already notching podium finishes at freeskiing contests across the country.
You only grow old if you stop playing: Whistler's senior Ski Team
Keeping active is the key to staying fit, and there are many activities for Whistler visitors, at whatever level of adrenaline tolerance or fitness - or age. The Whistler Ski Team is the brainchild of local pro Wendell Moore. The program grew from a group of seven keen skiers (with an average age of 67 and an average of 37.7 seasons under their belts) who were tired of dealing with the young turks, and wanted a more customized experience that accounted for the vagaries of older knees and slower reflexes. Within two seasons, it had exploded to 98 participants, 14 coaches, a website (www.seniorskiteam.com), a social calendar, and catskiing trips. The 2007-08 season ended with 27 teams and 189 skiers. www.seniorskiteam.com
Whistler's animal heroes have long history with avalanches
Some of the most valuable employees at Whistler Blackcomb have four legs. Since "Powder" the St. Bernard greeted skiers at the top of the Gondola in the early 1970s, dogs have played an important role at Whistler Blackcomb. Despite the high-tech world we live in, the canine members of the Whistler Blackcomb Ski Patrol still play a valuable part in search-and-rescue missions and avalanche rescues.
Son of Whistler freeskiing pioneer challenges slopes that took his father's life
Whistler's Trevor Petersen helped shape the sport of extreme skiing before he was killed in an avalanche in Chamonix's Exit Couloir in 1996. His son Kye was then six years old; growing up in Whistler, Kye became an accomplished freeskier himself. In 2005, then just 15 years old, Kye went with a group of the world's top freeskiers to Chamonix to challenge some of the last lines his father ever skied. The expedition is chronicled in William A. Kerig's book The Edge of Never, and the documentary film of Kye's journey, also called The Edge of Never, premiered in North America in late 2009.
Ski Patroller Mayors
Life in Sea to Sky country is a little different - people are giddy when it snows and the local mayors moonlight as ski patrollers. While the rest of the world prepares for another 9-to-5 day, Whistler Mayor Ken Melamed and Pemberton Mayor Jordan Sturdy are already on their skis as part of the Whistler Blackcomb volunteers ski patrol. After all, skiing is in their blood - it was the mountains that drew both politicians to life in the mountains.
Whistler's very own boutique ski and snowboard manufacturer - Prior Skis and Snowboards
Whistler is home to North America's largest boutique ski and board manufacturer - Prior Skis & Snowboards who have been creating customized boards for 20 years. The quest for the perfect snowboard began in 1990 when Chris Prior started making snowboards in the winter to compliment his well-known sailboard manufacturing business in North Vancouver. Over the next decade as the popularity of Prior grew and grew, Chris moved the operation out of his garage and began handcrafting premium snowboards full time.
In 2000, Prior moved its manufacturing facility to Whistler, BC - the ultimate testing ground for Prior's high performance products. In 2004 they expanded their range to also include skis. Fast forward to 2010 and Prior now has an extensive line of skis, snowboards and backcountry splitboards that are ridden by industry professionals and athletes all over the world. Since Prior was developed, they have had more than 30 World Cup podium finishes and over than half of those have been World Cup gold. And in an effort to keep their boards local they also work with numerous local artists and First Nations artists for their top-sheet designs.
Prior offers FREE tours of the factory twice a week. Tours take approximately 60 minutes and are a great opportunity to see how Prior boards and skis are made. www.priorsnowboards.com
Original pro snowboarder teaches tricks and turns on Blackcomb glacier all summer
In most resorts when summer arrives the skis and snowboards are packed away until winter hits again. Not in Whistler. High up on Blackcomb Mountain on the Hortsman Glacier is the world's largest private terrain park where the top skiers and snowboarders of tomorrow are hard at work all summer long. For six weeks every summer Whistler is home to the Camp of Champions, a summer camp offered to anyone who wants to improve their skiing or snowboarding skills.
Owner and director of Camp of Champions Ken Achenbach has been teaching aspiring young skiers and snowboarders the best tricks and turns in the business since 1989. Many of his students have gone on to become professional riders.
Achenbach is a key figure on the Canadian snowboarding scene playing the role of rider, shop owner, inventor, photographer and contest organizer over the years. Selling snowboards out of his family basement in 1980, he accidentally created the first exclusive snowboard store in the world. Then in 1983, Achenbach was named the vice world champion in halfpipe, becoming the first Canadian pro rider. He moved to Whistler in 1988 and created the Camp of Champions - employing his pro-rider shop team and friends as coaches. Achenbach also co-invented the Twin-tip, which spawned a whole new realm of snowboarding and skiing tricks. He is one of snowboarding's true pioneers. www.campofchampions.com