Whistler's Transformation

• Posted on February 16, 2009 at 2:31 PM
• Previous
• Next

 zoom  zoom out

Sorry about the drought of blogs lately. I've had a busy couple of weeks, which started with a day of skiing at Whistler-Blackcomb, one of my favourite ski hills. Every time I go to Whistler I feel an overwhelming desire to move there and this time was no different. In fact, my lust only increased thanks to Peak2Peak, the newest lift at the resort.

I've skied many hills, before and after, an important lift addition - Goat's Eye at Sunshine, the Boomerang at Mount Washington, Whistler's Symphony Chair – but none had the transformational aspect of the Peak2Peak. It literally changes the way you ski the hills. Not many ski lifts can make that claim.

It used to take a minimum of an hour to get from the alpine of one mountain, down to the base and back to the alpine of the other. That's 10 to 15 minutes of thigh burning, beginner dodging, groomer skiing and 45 minutes plus of lift riding. In other words, most days you picked one mountain and stayed put. Not so any more. The Peak2Peak eliminates 50 minutes of travel time by spanning the gap between the peaks.

The lift ride is a trip - you load onto a glass walled mega-gondola, roll over two huge towers and then drop into the abyss. The air time is serious - check out this video of base jumpers hucking their meat from the lift before it opened. By the time the cabin glides into the station on the other mountain the adrenaline is pumping and there in front of you is some of the steepest skiing in Canada.

Peak2Peak effectively doubles the amount of ski terrain open for riding every day. On my visit we rode almost every alpine lift on Blackcomb in the morning. The coverage was excellent considering how dry this winter has been on the coast. Then we hoped on Peak2Peak after lunch and did the same on Whistler. Sweet.