Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 | Posted by Editor - Blog News Service

Ski Report: Whistler Blackcomb

Whistler Blackcomb

Whistler Blackcomb

Whistler is a Canadian resort town in the southern Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains in the province of British Columbia, Canada, approximately 125 kilometres (78 mi) north of Vancouver. Incorporated as the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW), it has a permanent population of approximately 9,965, plus a larger but rotating “transient” population of workers, typically younger people from beyond BC, notably from Australia and Europe.

Over two million people visit Whistler annually, primarily for alpine skiing and mountain biking at Whistler-Blackcomb. Its pedestrian village has won numerous design awards and Whistler has been voted among the top destinations in North America by major ski magazines since the mid-1990s. During the 2010 Winter Olympics, Whistler will host most of the alpine, nordic and sliding events, though freestyle skiing and all snowboarding events will be hosted at Cypress Mountain near Vancouver.

Introduction
Whistler ski resort is consistently ranked the number one resort in North America and it’s easy to see why. Whistler has the largest skiable area and one of the longest vertical drops on the continent, topped off with an enviable snow record.

Skiing here dates back to 1966, when the ski area consisted of just four lifts and a day lodge. These days, five-star hotels and luxury condos grace the foot of the slopes, and the resort attracts 2 million visitors each winter.

The skiing is spread over two mountains, Whistler and Blackcomb. There are three neatly arranged pedestrianised bases – the Upper Village (at Blackcomb), Whistler Village proper, and fast-developing Creekside.

Along with Vancouver, Whistler will play host to the 2010 Winter Olympics, holding the alpine and cross-country skiing, biathlon, ski jumping, bobsleigh, skeleton and luge events.

Mountain facts
Resort elevation: 675m (2,214ft) (Whistler Village).
Top elevation: 2,284m (7,494ft).
Base elevation: 653m (2,140ft) (Whistler Creekside).
Number of lifts: 38.
Number of runs: 200+.
Average annual snowfall: 10m (33ft).
Piste map
Snow report
Webcam

Where in the world?
Whistler is situated in the Coast Mountains in Canada’s westernmost province, British Columbia. The resort is 125km (77 miles) north of Vancouver just outside Garibaldi Provincial Park.

Hit the slopes
The season runs from November to June (only one mountain usually remains open from the end of April), with summer glacier skiing on Blackcomb from late June until the end of July.

Whistler mountain has the edge over Blackcomb when it comes to beginners’ terrain. There’s a good learners’ area under the Olympic chairlift by the gondola midstation, while higher up, the Emerald Express chairlift serves a nice range of wide green runs.

Intermediates have an enormous choice of cruisy tree-lined runs and more challenging powder bowls – 55% of the ski area falls into this middle classification. Meanwhile, more than a quarter of the terrain is graded advanced/expert. Several heart-stopping drop-ins lead to steep chutes, bowls and mogul fields. Blackcomb’s Couloir Extreme is a must-do.

The tree skiing is out of this world too – there are a number of marked gladed trails, and plenty of widely spaced trees between runs as well.

For freestylers hoping to catch some air, there are terrain parks for all levels. The easiest features are in the Terrain Garden on Blackcomb, while the Highest Level park supplies mammoth jumps for the experts.

Whistler has an efficient, modern lift system, although queues at popular lifts tend to build up over holiday periods. Ever keen to stay one step ahead of its competitors, Whistler continues to add to its inventory. In 2006, the Symphony Express high-speed chairlift increased lift-serviced terrain by over 400 hectares (1,000 acres). Now owners Intrawest have taken the bold move of installing a gondola connecting the two mountains at altitude. The PEAK 2 PEAK gondola opened in December 2008 and travels 4.4km (2.7 miles) in 11 minutes, carrying passengers up to 436m (1,430ft) above the valley floor.

Whistler Blackcomb’s ski school offers private and group lessons. Equipment hire is available from numerous locations in the village.

The two previously separate ski areas of Whistler and Blackcomb were integrated into one operation in 1997 after Intrawest merged with Whistler Mountain Ski Corporation. Ticketing, pass, and access control systems for the two ski areas were fully integrated in 2003.

Together, Whistler and Blackcomb form the largest ski area in North America at 8,171 acres (33 km2), 54% larger than that of Vail, the next largest, which has 5,289 acres (21 km2). Both mountains have some of the largest lift-serviced vertical skiing in North America, with Blackcomb having the most at 1,565 m (5,133 ft), but marketed as one mile (1.6 km). Whistler has slightly less vertical at 1,530 m (5,020 ft). The highest lift elevation, on Blackcomb, is 2,240 m (7,349 ft).

The mountains are accessed from the valley by two gondolas from Whistler Village (Excalibur and Whistler Village Gondolas), a four person detachable chairlift (Wizard Express Chair) at the base of Blackcomb Mountain, a four person detachable chairlift at the base of Whistler Mountain in Whistler Village and by a gondola at the Creekside base approximately four kilometres by road south of Whistler Village.. Travelling from one mountain to the other, while staying in the ski area, was only possible at the valley elevation before 2008 when Whistler Blackcomb connected the two mountains at approximately 1,800m (6,000 ft) with the Peak 2 Peak Gondola. This lift opened on December 12, 2008. The lift has a total length of 4.4 km (2.73 mi) and the longest unsupported span for a lift of its kind in the world at 3.02 km (1.88 mi) while also having the highest ground clearance for a lift of its kind, 436m (1,427 ft) above the valley floor.

The primary skiing terrain starts about 1/3 up the mountain. A ski-out to the valley is usually possible during the months of December through April. The mid- and upper- areas are serviced by 10 high-speed detachable chairs and 5 fixed-grip lifts made by Lift Engineering, Doppelmayr and Poma lifts. 3 T-bars service the Horstman Glacier and the Whistler alpine regions and take skiers to the entrance to Blackcomb Glacier. The overall lift capacity, 65,507 skiers per hour, is the greatest in North America, although only slightly greater than Vail Ski Resort in Colorado.

Whistler Village, which is part of the Resort Municipality of Whistler, a geo-political entity not directly associated with Intrawest’s operation, is situated at the base of the Whistler Mountain Village Gondola and Blackcomb Excalibur Gondola. The Village incorporates community services, shops, entertainment venues, restaurants, bars, hotels, condominiums and vacation properties. The Village is 675 m (2,214 ft) above sea level, and is located 137 km (85 miles) from Vancouver International Airport.

Whistler Blackcomb will host the alpine skiing events for the 2010 Winter Olympics, including the men’s and women’s Olympic and Paralympic alpine skiing disciplines of downhill, Super-G, giant slalom, super combined and slalom.

Whistler Mountain

Whistler Mountain, originally named London Mountain, has a summit elevation of 2182 meters (7160 ft) and is the right most (southern) mountain when looking at the Whistler-Blackcomb ski area from Whistler Village. Whistler currently has 7 high speed detachable quad chair lifts, 2 gondolas, 2 fixed grip chair lifts, 2 t-bars. and the drive station for the Peak 2 Peak Gondola connecting it with Blackcomb mountain to the north. There are 4 on hill restaurants, as well as a children’s ski school facility and children can sign up for a five day lesson called “Adventure Camp”. The total vertical drop is 1530 meters (5020 ft) and 4,757 acres (19 km2) skiable inbound terrain. It is served by two base areas: Whistler Creek, the original base, on its southwest flank, and Whistler Village on its northwest flank.

The Whistler Mountain ski area is the older of the two mountains, having been opened in 1966, 14 years before Blackcomb Mountain.
History 1966–1997

Whistler Mountain opened for skiing in February, 1966, with a gondola lift, double chairlift (the Red Chair) and T-bar, all built by GMD Mueller. The new mountain won instant acclaim for its vertical drop, good snow conditions, and huge alpine area. The only problem at the time was the road—it was a dirt logging track, which was only plowed on Saturday, to the detriment of Friday travelers.

The Blue and Green chairlifts were added in 1970, providing lift access to additional terrain. The Roundhouse, an on mountain lodge and restaurant, was also constructed in 1980. This new lodge provided respite for cold skiers who had survived the long ride up on the Red Chair.

In 1972 Whistler Mountain added the Olive and Orange chairlifts. A parallel lift to the Green Chair to alleviate crowds came in 1974, and the Little Red Chair came in 1978.

Major changes were seen in 1980 with the opening of Whistler Village and a new competing ski area, Blackcomb Mountain, north of Whistler Mountain’s original base. To ensure its guests could continue to easily access Whistler, a succession of three triple chairlifts, the Village, Olympic, and Black Chairs were built that carried skiers from this new village to the Roundhouse Lodge. Whistler’s original base began to be referred to as Whistler Creek, or Creekside after the creek that runs through the area.

The next major addition came in 1986, when the Peak Chair to the summit of Whistler Mountain was constructed. This lift opened up Whistler Mountain’s alpine terrain and made Whistler the largest alpine ski area in North America.

In response to Blackcomb Mountain’s construction of three high-speed quad chairlifts, Whistler Mountain undertook one of the biggest ski-lift construction projects ever realized in Canada at the time, the construction of the Whistler Express Gondola. Carrying passengers 1,157 m (3,795 ft) vertically and 5 km (3 mi) horizontally over 63 support towers, the lift opened on November 24, 1988.

In 1990 Whistler Mountain began upgrading its aging fleet of fixed grip chairlifts with the addition of its first high-speed quad chairlift. The Green Chair Express, which replaced the Green Chairs, was built by Lift Engineering (Yan), and substantially cut long lift queues in the Green area of the mountain.

A year later, Whistler Mountain replaced three double chairlifts and the original Creekside gondola with two high-speed quad chairlifts, the Quicksilver Express and Redline Express lifts, also built by Lift Engineering.

1994 saw the removal of the Blue Chair, and the construction of the Harmony Express, built by Poma, which started from the base of the former Blue Chair[citation needed], but ran all the way to the top of Little Whistler Peak.

In 1995, tragedy struck. On 23 December 1995, the lift operator on the Quicksilver lift pressed the button to make a routine stop, to allow a fallen skier to get out of the way of the unloading ramp. Instead, the emergency brake activated, sending shockwaves down the cable. Grips on at least two of the chairs slipped, and caused chairs to slide down the cable and slam into each other. In all, eight were injured, and two were killed in one of the worst ski lift accidents in North America. The disaster ended up causing the bankruptcy of the lift’s manufacturer, Lift Engineering.

1997–present

In 1997, the Whistler Mountain Ski Corporation was bought out by Intrawest, which had owned Blackcomb Mountain since 1986. Big changes were made on Whistler Mountain. The Quicksilver lift was replaced with a Poma gondola, the Creekside Gondola, while the Green Chair Express and Redline lifts were removed and replaced with Doppelmayr high speed quad chair lifts, aptly named the Emerald Express and Big Red Express lifts, and the original Roundhouse was demolished and a new lodge built in its place.

Around this time Intrawest began marketing the two mountains as one large ski area under the name “Whistler-Blackcomb”.

1998 saw the replacement of the Peak Chair with a high-speed quad. The original Peak Chair was renamed to Franz’s Chair and moved parallel to the Big Red Express chair with a return station approximately half way up the Big Red Express lift line.

The Black Chair was replaced with a high-speed quad (the Garbanzo Express Chair), and another was added (the Fitzsimmons Express Chair) in 2000, following the line of the long-gone Village Chair. The top of the Fitzsimmons and the bottom of the Garbanzo are co-located in the Village Gondola Olympic station area, providing extra lift capacity from the Whistler Village to the top of the mid-mountain zone in addition to the gondola itself.

Whistler-Blackcomb’s 2006/ 2007 season saw the construction and opening of the Symphony Express, a high speed quad chairlfit that begins towards the bottom of the Symphony Amphitheater and carries riders to the top of Piccolo. Symphony Amphitheater is the basin between Harmony and Flute ridges and was named by Whistler-Blackcomb. One of the original names suggested for this lift was the Piccolo Express.

In the summers of 2007 and 2008, the Peak 2 Peak Gondola was constructed and opened on December 12, 2008 for the first time. The first summer operation day was June 6, 2009.

Summer of 2009 sees the construction of the Timing Flats Express, a new Doppelmayr CTEC high speed detachable quad chairlift out of Whistler’s Creekside Base. It will be primarily use for foot passengers for the 2010 Olympics, but may be available for skiers and riders to use after the games. Ride time is approximately 2 minutes with 8 towers to cross over.

Blackcomb Mountain

Blackcomb Mountain logo, 1980-1985

Blackcomb Mountain opened in 1980, under the partnership of Fortress Mountain Resorts, then a wholly owned subsidiary of Aspen Skiing Company, and the Federal Business Development Bank of Canada, with four triple chairlifts (later named Cruiser, Stoker, Catskinner and Fitzsimmons lifts) and one double chairlift supplied by Lift Engineering. The competition of this mountain was not initially appreciated by Whistler Mountain. Indeed, the mountain was considered “new kid on the block” into the early 1990s.

In 1982, “Chair 6″ (later rebranded Jersey Cream) opened in the Horstman Creek drainage. In 1983 Blackcomb acquired a used T-Bar from Fortress Mountain and installed it on a south-facing slope, in full view of Whistler Mountain. This 7th lift was coined 7th Heaven T-Bar and gave access to high alpine and glaciated terrain. It also gave Blackcomb the highest lift-serviced vertical drop of any ski area in North America, although somewhat less than the company’s claim of 1 mile (5,280 ft, 1,609 m).

In 1986, the mountain’s assets and real estate rights were bought by fledgling real estate developer Intrawest Corp which immediately underwent massive upgrades on Blackcomb. That year, Blackcomb installed three high-speed Doppelmayr detachable quad chairlifts, moved the 7th Heaven T-Bar to Horstman Glacier, and installed a second T-Bar on Horstman Glacier, called Showcase. The T-Bars were installed in anticipation of summer skiing and eventual access to Blackcomb Glacier (at that time completely within the boundaries of Garibaldi Provincial Park). The new Wizard and Solar Coaster quad lifts cut the lift ride time from base to alpine from 45 minutes to 15. The Rendezvous Restaurant was re-dubbed Base 2 and the moniker moved to the restaurant at the top of the Solar Coaster lift.

The Wizard Express quad lift at the base of Blackcomb mountain

In 1989, Lift 6 (Jersey Cream) was replaced with a Doppelmayr high-speed quad and the Yan triple lift was moved to the newly opened Crystal Ridge area of the mountain.

In 1992, the Glacier Express was installed, running from the base of the Jersey Cream quad lift to the toe of the Horstman T-Bars. This lift’s construction was followed by the building of the Glacier Creek Restaurant- the largest building on Blackcomb Mountain.

In 1994, Blackcomb made its last major lift expansion with the replacement of the Stoker, Cruiser, and Fitzsimmons lifts with the high-speed Excelerator quad chair and Excalibur Gondola. The second is dubbed by some as the “gondola to nowhere” since it doesn’t connect with any restaurant or access additional terrain. However, it allowed rapid alpine access for skiers in Whistler Village, who previously had to take 4 chairlifts to Rendezvous (Fitzsimmons, Stoker, Cruiser, and Jersey Cream, with 3 of those being slower chairs). The Excelerator also opened up a vast area of intermediate-difficulty terrain to the left of Solar Coaster and below Jersey Cream that was previously neglected and under-utilized, because skiers who travel those slopes frequently had to go all the way to the bottom of the mountain, which is over-skied and icy.

Blackcomb is the location of the world famous “Couloir Extreme” run, which is one of the top ten steep in-bounds runs in the world according to Skiing Magazine. Originally called the Saudan Couloir by local skiers even before it was part of the ski area, the company eventually had to drop the name when extreme skier Sylvain Saudan complained about the unauthorised use of his name.

In 1996, Intrawest purchased Whistler to create Whistler Blackcomb as it is known today.

Whistler Blackcomb’s Tube Park

For the 2005-2006 ski season Blackcomb mountain opened the Tube Park to allow for recreational tubing at the resort. The tube park is located at Base II on Blackcomb Mountain alongside the Village Run.

Lift Name Length Vertical Type Ride Time Capacity
(people per hour)		 Make Build Year
PEAK 2 PEAK 4,400m 36m 28 Person 3S Gondola 11 mins 4,100 Doppelmayr 2008
Whistler Village Gondola 5,000m 1,157m 8 Person Gondola 1988
Creekside Gondola 8 Person Gondola Poma 1997
Excalibur Gondola 8 Person Gondola 1994
Harmony Express High Speed Quad Poma 1994
Big Red Express High Speed Quad Doppelmayr 1997
Emerald Express High Speed Quad Doppelmayr 1997
Fitzsimmons Express High Speed Quad Doppelmayr 2000
Symphony Express High Speed Quad Doppelmayr 2007
Garbanzo Express High Speed Quad 2002
Excelerator Express High Speed Quad 1994
Wizard Express High Speed Quad Doppelmayr 1986
Solar Coaster Express High Speed Quad Doppelmayr 1986
Jersey Cream Express High Speed Quad 1989
7th Heaven Express High Speed Quad 1986
Glacier Express High Speed Quad 1992
Timing Flats Express High Speed Quad Doppelmayr 2009
The Peak High Speed Quad 1998
Crystal Chair Triple Chairlift
Franz’s Chair Triple Chairlift 1998
Catskinner Triple Chairlift
Olympic Chair Triple Chairlift
Magic Chair Triple Chairlift
Showcase T-bar 1986
Horstman T-bar 1986
Glacier Bowl 1 T-bar
Glacier Bowl 2 T-bar
Tube Park Magic Carpet
Creekside Magic Carpet
Yellow Brick Road Magic Carpet
Merlin’s Magic Carpet
Expressway Magic Carpet

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