Whistler-Blackcomb
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| Whistler Blackcomb Resort | |
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| Location: | |
| Nearest city: | Whistler, Pemberton |
| Coordinates: | Coordinates: |
| Vertical: | Whistler: 1561 m (5120 ft) Blackcomb: 1609 m (5280 ft) |
| Top elevation: | Whistler: 2182 m (7160 ft) Blackcomb: 2284 m (7494 ft) |
| Base elevation: | Whistler: 652 m (2140 ft) Blackcomb: 675 m (2214 ft) |
| Skiable area: | Whistler: 19.25 km² (4757 acres) Blackcomb: 13.82 km² (3414 acres) |
| Runs: | >200 |
| Longest run: | 11 km |
| Lift system: | 38 (3 gondolas, 19 chairlifts, 16 surface lifts) |
| Lift capacity: | Whistler: 32,295 skiers/hr Blackcomb: 29,112 skiers/hr |
| Snowfall: | 10.1 m/year (396 in./year) |
| Snowmaking: | Whistler: 0.87 km² (215 acres), 4.5% Blackcomb: 1.42 km² (350 acres), 10.3% |
| Night skiing: | Limited, 1 lift, 3 days/week |
| Web site: | Whistler Blackcomb |
Whistler Blackcomb is a ski resort located in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. It is consistently rated among the top five ski resorts in North America by Ski Magazine, due to the combination of extensive terrain, good snow, and a highly-rated nightlife.
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[edit] Description
The two previously separate ski areas of Whistler and Blackcomb have been systematically integrated into one mega-resort since 1997[1] when Intrawest finally completed the addition of neighboring Whistler Mountain to their Blackcomb ownership. Combined ticketing, pass, and access control systems for the two ski areas were finally integrated in 2003.
Together, Whistler and Blackcomb form the largest single ski area in North America at 8,171 acres (33.07 km²), over 50% larger than that of Vail, the runner-up, with 5,289 acres (21.41 km²). Their combined areas also boast the highest "vertical drop" in North America, with Blackcomb being the highest at 1564 m (5,133 ft), but often rounded to one mile for marketing purposes[2]. Whistler is only slightly "shorter", at 1530 m (5,018 ft), making it the second highest vertical drop. The highest lift elevation, on Blackcomb, is 2240 m (7347 ft).
The mountains are accessed primarily by two gondolas, one for each mountain, meeting at the base of Whistler in Whistler Village. A third gondola, serving Whistler only, is located some distance to the south at the Creekside base. Traversing from one mountain to the other is currently possible only at the bottom, via the gondolas. To address this problem, the "Peak to Peak Gondola" connecting the two mountains at their mid-levels has been in planning and construction since 2007, and is currently planned for completion by December 2008. When completed, the lift will have a total length of 4.4 kilometres (2.7 mi) and the longest unsupported span for a lift of its kind in the world at 3,024 metres (9,921 ft), while also being the highest lift of its kind, 415 m (1,362 ft) above the valley floor.
The primary skiing terrain starts about mid-mountain, with the lower sections open only as the weather and snow cover permit. A ski-out is typically kept open for most of the season. The mid and upper areas are served primarily by high-speed detachable chairs of various sizes, with a small number of older Yan type lifts and a few t-bars servicing the glacier on Blackcomb and on Whistler where winds make chair operations difficult. The overall lift capacity, over 61,400 skiers per hour, is the highest in North America, although only slightly greater than Vail.
The well-developed village contains several large hotels, restaurants and bars, condominiums, and vacation homes. The village is 675 m (2,214 ft) above sea level, and is located approximately 126 km (78 miles) from Vancouver, and the Vancouver International Airport. Whistler Village serves as the model for Intrawest's other properties, such as Solitude Ski Resort in Utah. A new village, Creekside, is currently being developed several kilometers away from the main village, and is served by the third gondola.
Whistler Blackcomb will host events for the 2010 Winter Olympics, including the men's and women's slalom, giant slalom, bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton events.
 A panorama of Whistler-Blackcomb |
 A view of 7th Heaven on Blackcomb Mountain from Whistler Mountain. |
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[edit] Whistler Mountain
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 mountain soon expanded, adding the Blue and Green chairlifts in 1970, as well as a mountaintop lodge, the Roundhouse, which provided respite for cold skiers who had survived the long ride up on the Red Chair. After the Sea-to-Sky Highway was paved in 1969, more people than ever came to Whistler Mountain, which is located two hours north of Vancouver and four hours north of Seattle.
The mountain added the Olive and Orange chairlifts in 1972. A parallel lift to the Green Chair to alleviate crowds came in 1974, and the Little Red Chair came in 1978.
Because the number of visitors was rapidly increasing, the town in the valley had to expand as well to accommodate them. A plan was drawn up, and the village of Alta Lake was incorporated into the Resort Municipality of Whistler in 1975. The new municipal government, which had powers that enabled better management of the growing community, immediately, initiated construction of Whistler Village.
Whistler Village opened in 1980. Along with it came a succession of three triple chairlifts, the Village, Olympic, and Black Chairs, that carried skiers from the Village to the Roundhouse in no less than 45 minutes. Hotels and restaurants soon emerged in the pedestrian village. Hearthstone Lodge, built by Vancouver real estate developer Clifford Ames, was the first building completed during phase I of construction.
The next major addition came in 1986, when the Peak Chair to the summit of Whistler Mountain was constructed. This lift revolutionized skiing on Whistler Mountain, allowing access to 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, 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 reached another milestone, 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, in 1991, Whistler Mountain continued in its construction streak, replacing three double chairlifts and the original gondola with two high-speed quad chairlifts, the Quicksilver and Redline lifts, also built by Lift Engineering.
1994 saw the removal of the Blue Chair, and the construction of the Harmony Express, which started from the base of the former Blue Chair, 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[3] [4] 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.
In 1997, the Whistler Mountain Ski Corporation was bought out by Intrawest, which had owned Blackcomb since 1986. Big changes were made on Whistler Mountain. The Quicksilver lift was replaced with a gondola, the Green Chair Express and Redline lifts were removed and replaced with modern Doppelmayr lifts, and the original Roundhouse was demolished and a new lodge built in its place.
1998 saw the replacement of the Peak triple chair with a high-speed quad.
2000 brought more changes, as the Black Chair was replaced with a high-speed quad (the Garbanzo Chair), and another was added (the Fitzsimmons Chair), following the line of the long-gone Village Chair. The top of the Fitzsimmons and the bottom of the Garbanzo are more or less co-located in the Village Gondola Olympic station area, thus providing extra lifting capacity from the main village into the high Alpine additional to the Village Gondola itself.
In 2005 Whistler-Blackcomb announced the proposed $51.4 million Peak to Peak gondola which aims to break the world records for height, as well as total distance between two towers. The gondola terminals will be adjacent to Whistler's Roundhouse and Blackcomb's Rendezvous restaurants. The 4.4 km (2¾ mi) lift would span 415 m (1,360 ft) above Fitzsimmons Creek with just four towers. The maximum distance between the two largest towers will be about 2.9 km (1¾ mi) long. Construction of the lift began in May 2007 and should take 18 months to complete, just in time for the 2008/2009 season. Construction is only taking place during the summer months and shut down in October.
During the summer of 2006, Whistler-Blackbomb installed a new four person detachable chair that begins at the base of Flute Bowl and carries riders to the top of Piccolo. In August 2006, Whistler-Blackcomb announced that this new lift was to be called the Symphony Express and would provide access to the Symphony Amphitheatre, a name chosen to reflect the high alpine area's natural amphitheatre-like terrain. The new lift opened on December 16 2006 [5].
Whistler Mountain is said to offer some of the most varied terrain of any North American resort, from the park and pipes, to glades, cliffs off the peak chair, wide open harmony and symphony zone, beginner terrain at the base, and cruiser runs off the gondola and Big Red chair.[citation needed]
[edit] Whistler Mountain Bike Park
Whistler Mountain also features a mountain bike park that uses the Fitzsimmons and Garbanzo quad chairlifts, as well as the Village Gondola to shuttle bikers to around midstation, at 1,200 m (4,000 ft). The park has 36 trails for all skill levels totaling 200 km (125 mi) of trails. There are smooth trails with gentle banked corners for beginners, steep twisty trails for intermediates, tight trails with jumps and stunts for advanced riders, and challenging trails with giant jumps, drops, and root-strewn terrain for the experts.
The two high speed quad chairlifts used by the bike park have every second chair replaced with a bike rack during the summer. The rack fits four bikes, three in grooves and one on a hook on the side of the chair. The bikers then get on the next chair which is a normal passenger carrier. A smaller rider base, due to expert-only trails, necessitates that the Garbanzo Express only has one quarter of the Fitzsimmons' capacity for the time being.
The bike park has two zones. The Fitzsimmons zone (the lower zone) and the Garbanzo zone (the upper zone). All riders take either the Village Gondola or the Fitzsimmions quad to the Olympic Station area. Then advanced and expert riders can take the Garbanzo quad up further to the Garbanzo zone. Garbanzo riders can return to midstation or Whistler Village, the base of the bike park. From the top of Garbanzo to the village is an impressive 1100 m (3,600 ft) vertical descent; eclipsed only by the more expensive guided descents from the top gondola station or the top of the Peak Chair, the highest accessible point on the mountain. "A-Line" is the most well-known track. "The Boneyard" is the collection of jumps visible from the base.
The park hosts two large, annual mountain biking competitions/festivals. Crankworx is held in the summer; Joyride Huckfest is held in the fall. The mountain is frequented by professional mountain bikers such as Wade Simmons, Andrew Shandro, Richie Schley, Francis Hopcraft, and Anne-Caroline Chausson.
[edit] Blackcomb Mountain
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, Lift 6 (later named 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 installed three high-speed Doppelmayr detachable chairlifts, moved the 7th Heaven T-Bar to Horstman Glacier, and installed a second T-Bar on Horstman Glacier. 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.
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 lift to the toe of Horstman Glacier. 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-dubbed by some 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, 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.
In 1996, Intrawest purchased Whistler to create Whistler-Blackcomb as it is known today.
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.
[edit] Blackcomb Magic Bike Park
At the base of Blackcomb is Magic Park, three downhill trails designed to give beginners an introduction to downhill biking. The first of these trails, "Easy Rider", opened on 18 June 2005. The two trails are wide and smooth, forgiving for beginners.[citation needed] The park is accessed from the Magic Chair, a short triple chairlift that only gains 94 m (308 ft) of vertical (as compared with the 1,200 m, 3,900 ft, of vertical in the Whistler Bike Park).[citation needed]
[edit] Whistler Blackcomb's Coca-Cola Tube Park
For the 2005-2006 ski season Blackcomb mountain opened the Coca-Cola Tube Park to allow for recreational tubing at the resort. The tube park is located at Base II on Blackcomb Mountain alongside the Sulfur Alley ski run.
[edit] XXI Olympic Winter Games
During the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, the resort will host the alpine skiing, biathlon, cross country skiing, ski jumping, bobsleigh, luge and skeleton. Whistler, as the main focus of the 2010 Olympics, will undergo massive changes in order to create the sport venues and house the athletes and staff. Millions of dollars have been put aside to cut the drive from Vancouver to Whistler on the Sea to Sky highway down to about an hour. Other money will go towards upkeep of stadiums and renovations on local mountains in and around Vancouver.
[edit] Notes
- The publication 99 North (Canada Wide Media Limited) contains news and information about the Whistler-Blackcomb Resort.
- ^ Intrawest: History
- ^ Accurate Lift-served Vertical Feet Totals
- ^ Nixon, Emily Disaster and Emergency Management: The Quicksilver Chairlift Incident, Graduating Essay, University of Victoria, Geography Dept., April 2004
- ^ Pyn, Larry. "Minimizing the risks on B.C.'s ski lifts", The Vancouver Sun, Canwest Interactive, 2008-02-09. Retrieved on 2008-02-29.
- ^ Symphony Amphitheatre & the Symphony Express
Also, Whistler announced that they will be building a gondola connecting the two mountains for the 2010 olympic games.
[edit] See also
- Whistler, British Columbia the town of Whistler
- Whistler Mountain the geographical feature
- Blackcomb Peak the geographical feature
- Garibaldi Provincial Park
