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Whistler & Blackcomb Mountain Resorts Ltd
One review for Whistler & Blackcomb Mountain Resorts Ltd
1 review in English
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Review from reyz a.
3/3/2011
It must have been 25F on the Red Chair at Whistler when I was a kid when the metal zipper of my ski jacket got accidentally frozen together with my lower lips. In retrospect, that was a blessing, because after nearly ripping my lower kisser off, I knew never ever to try to french kiss the cold metal bars of any high speed triple chair.
Now that I'm older and wiser, I no longer try to play highway tag with other testaronee people in my sports car from Squamish (the Squeemish highway, can be an icy adventure of a road carved on the side of Howe Sound cliffs with occasional boulders known to drop from above) back to Vancouver, in less than 2 hours, after skiing, just to try and catch the next shift of peelers shower at Number Five Orange. Now I just visit from California, drive my SUV, ski, drink warm milk right after and sleep by 8pm...not.
The mountains of Whistler Blackcomb near Squamish, British Columbia , hasn't changed. But the village has. This was the site of the 2010 Winter Olympics. It has the largest vertical drop of 5,280 feet. There are over 8,000 skiiable acres (in comparison, Squaw has about 4000). There are heli skiing, snowboarding and snowmobiling trails throughout the mountains. There's terrain parks and half pipes, tree forts, 200 marked trails from beginner to advanced, restaurants and 38 chair lifts. The village offers world class hotels, shopping, boutique stores, a museum, a library, a couple of churches and bars(lots and lots) for après-skiing. Drinking age in BC is 19years old, so the crowd looks very collegiate compared to the US.
With so many hotels circling the ski runs, they say there are19,936 pillows within 500 meters of the lifts. Who cares about these hotels...I want the old outdoor water slide back.
Mid-mountain, there's the "Stairway To Heaven" area boundary to Blackcomb Mountain, where you can cross over using a gondola instead of skiing (wimps).
The peak at Peak Express is only about 2187m (7160ft), so it's not that high compared to the Sierras, but don't forget that you are further north. In other words, 5280 ft of vertical means different weather patterns as you ski down. The peak could be -23°C / -10°F, alpine at -21°C / -6°F and the village at -9°C / 16°F.
This place is BIIIIG.
This is what I like to do:
1) Use the Whistler Village Gondola to mid mountain
2) Up the peak on Peak Express to 2187 m/7160ft. Here...
- there are lots of black diamonds to the skier's left
- there are triple diamonds on skier's right (Couloir or the Cirque)
- a big bowl under the chair (Whistler bowl)
(BTW, lots of intermediate runs up there too...so you don't have to kill yourselves like I like to do)
Ski down to the village or go via peak2peak to Blackcomb mid-mountain
3) Go up 7th Heaven near the top (Blackcomb peak at 2440m/8000ft)
4) Ski the glacier and the T-bars area (open in the summer too)
5) Ski under Solar express or Wizard express
6) Skip lunch (or drink lunch) because I ate yesterday...
Molson's Canadian awaits you at the bottom because it is now party time.
