A skier’s paradise
The 10 best lifts at Whistler/Blackcomb resort.
Every winter, more skiers and snowboarders pick Canada’s Whistler/Blackcomb than any other resort in North America.
It is stunningly large, with the most skiable terrain (8,171 acres) and highest vertical rise (5,280 feet) on the continent, and each of its two interconnected mountains is bigger than other top-tier destination resorts.
This terrain is served by a vast network of three dozen lifts, including three new ones for the coming season. The highlight is a 10-passenger gondola that replaces two chairs previously required to get from the bottom of Blackcomb to the top, now a much faster single ride ascent – for 4,000 skiers per hour, the greatest capacity of any lift in the U.S. or Canada.
This is part of the single-biggest investment year in the resort’s history, $52 million spent by new owner Vail Resorts. The company also added Whistler/Blackcomb to its multimountain international season pass, the Epic Pass, meaning skiers who hold the season pass for their home mountains can now ski here for free.
The user- and pedestrian-friendly village also is a big attraction of Whistler and matches the mountains in scope with more than 100 dining and drinking options of every ilk. You’ll find hotels, condos and rental homes in every price point, up to luxury full-service resorts from Four Seasons and Fairmont.
Adjectives used in describing the resort always include superlatives, but all this raises the question:
How big is big enough?
I decided to find out by skiing a lot, for five days, making it a point to visit every part of both mountains, exploring the different types of terrain and climate zones.
On one hand, no one needs 200 trails, but having that many lets you cherrypick the 40 or 50 that are best for you and your ideal snow conditions, and that is what makes a really big mountain better.
The feeling that you’ve run out of terrain and have to ski the same stuff over and over limits a great ski vacation.
“It seems to be an East Coast thing; people come here and ask, ‘ How many runs do you have?’ But we don’t think of it like that. We think in terms of how much varied terrain we have, all these different zones,” said Marc Riddell, longtime ski patroller turned resort marketing executive.
Because the mountains are so big and sprawling, the easiest way to break it up for visitors is by lift. Spending a few hours riding the same lift while skiing different trails is the most efficient way to organize the slopes into understandable clusters, minimize map reading and commuting, and these 10 “mustski” lifts cover the gamut of terrain the resort is famous for.
Blackcomb
❚ Showcase T-Bar: One unique appeal of Blackcomb is its glaciers, offering an alpine experience to anyone who has never skied on one before. Blackcomb Glacier includes both a manageable blue intermediate run plus the extreme double-blacks of Garnet, Diamond, Ruby and Sapphire bowls, set within cliffs and Blackcomb’s calling card for true experts.
❚ Glacier Express: Yes, it serves some of Blackcomb’s most extreme terrain on the steep walls of the glacier, but the main appeal is for “regular” experts who are not up for the hike over the ridge and want to stay on the front side. These expert trails are a nice mix of long and winding and short and steep, all within the skill set of most advanced skiers and riders.
❚ Seventh Heaven Express: On the front of Blackcomb’s alpine summit, this quad packs a lot of bang for the buck, serving an array of blues and entry-level blacks, nearly a dozen in all, an unusual assortment of such accessible above-treeline trails, all funneling to the base of the lift.
❚ Crystal Ridge Express: Few chairs in skiing offer this much variety suitable for everyone from basic intermediates to true experts, with more sheltered spring-like conditions.
❚ Blackcomb Gondola: This fast ride from the base serves a variety of terrain spanning the middle and lower parts of the mountain previously covered by the Wizard and Solar Coaster Express chairs. This includes several terrain parks, the mountain’s super pipe and a unique feature, a public snowcross course where you can experience one of the newest alpine Olympic disciplines.
Whistler
❚ Peak Express: The chair dramatically runs up the face of vast Whistler Bowl, the centerpiece of the upper third of the mountain. For advanced skiers, there are an endless number of routes, and you could spend a whole day up here, but there is no easy way down.
❚ Symphony Express: This highspeed quad serves the intermediate paradise of Symphony Amphitheatre, a large collection of bowl skiing on the backside of Whistler. Head here if the
sun is shining!
❚ Harmony 6 Express: This fast sixpassenger chair drops you on intermediate Harmony Ridge, which runs the full length of the alpine upper third of the mountain. This is a perfect choice for advanced intermediates or newfound advanced skiers looking to step it up a notch without any scary topography.
❚ Emerald Express: The prime lift for parks, families and beginners, this serves a midmountain slow skiing zone of groomed blues and greens, three terrain parks, and a long winding green trail to the base.
❚ Creekside Gondola: Creekside village is the only other access point to the resort besides Whistler Village, and the resort’s longest runs at the finish down here, including the thigh-burning Peak to Creek intermediate trail that winds from the summit to this lowest point. But the main reason people head to this overlooked corner of the resort is the famed Dave Murray Downhill, the site of the 2010 Winter Olympic Downhill.