Snowboarding

A Luxurious Whistler Vacation…from “the other guy”

Hello, I’m Steve.

Some of you may remember me from the few posts that I made about cycling back towards the end of last summer. Since then, Adam has done the lion’s share of updates on this site; after all, it is snowboarding season, and he is the authoritative source on that subject. Meanwhile, aside from going to Whistler with Adam last month, I’ve been productive in other ways: such as playing video games, watching TV, and…and…playing video games? So at the behest of surly Adam, it’s time to get with the program.

Last week I went back to Whistler under the guise of vacation so that I could complete the mandatory “go to Whistler twice each year” requirement that has been in effect for the past 3 years. My girlfriend and I left on a Friday night and ‘boarded Saturday through Tuesday before taking the red-eye out on Tuesday night. And here’s the scoop…

The Trip

Our typical Whistler trips look something like 4-5 people, a shared house/apartment with a few beds, a taskmaster who makes sure the group is on the lift by 9:00am, and a snowboarding experience that is often augmented by Danzig’s Mother.

This most recent trip was completely different. My girlfriend and I went to Whistler for vacation, and we decided to do things differently. For starters, we flew first class from Toronto to Vancouver. No more buying Harvey’s breakfast sandwiches for $5 each. Secondly, we stayed at the Pan Pacific hotel, which is located right next to the Whistler & Blackcomb gondolas. With each trip back to Whistler, we’ve gotten closer and closer to the village proper, but this time we were in the prime spot. Lastly, we treated this Whistler trip very much like a vacation, which is to say we ordered room service, took our time getting to the mountain, and were a bit more relaxed overall. This last part was probably influenced that we went in to this trip recovering from what might be the flu.

Oh, and my iPod was without Danzig, so Bulls On Parade had to act in its place.

The Conditions

Well, they weren’t as good as our mid-January trip.

The only thing that was considerably better was the visibility. We had clear blue skies for 3 out of 4 days.

The base was large enough that we had all the terrain that we could handle, but the snow wasn’t fresh. It didn’t snow while we were there, and areas like Symphony Express were so cut up that it wasn’t worth the time and effort. Furthermore, I didn’t realize that the World Cup was going on in Whistler when we scheduled our trip, which meant that famous runs like the Dave Murray Downhill and Lower Franz were closed. The only way to Creekside was through Peak to Creek, which was very crowded due to traffic in the priority line-ups.

The Runs

With all of the runs below red chair closed and Symphony a mess, we spent a large portion of our Whistler time riding the Garbanzo chair, taking runs such as Tokum, Bear Paw, and Raven. As mentioned in other posts on this site, the Garbanzo chair is centrally located so that you can easily get to other parts of the mountain, it has many blue and black runs with easy access to glades, and has very small lift lines. We would usually take the Fitzsimmons chair up to Garbanzo instead of getting on the Whistler gondola. We spent some time at Harmony as well, but on this trip, it was the most crowded area on Whistler.

With Blackcomb, we usually spend a lot of time in Seventh Heaven, but like Symphony, this is an area that needs fresh snow to really be fun. After a few runs there, we distributed our time across Crystal chair, Glacial Express, and Excelerator.

Blackcomb wasn’t busy as all, and as a result, this was my first trip where I spent as much time on Blackcomb as I did on Whistler.

The Pubs

OK, our night life was pretty dull. We were both recovering from illness, and of course we were both tired from snowboarding each day, but at least we made it out.

We hit up the usuals such as the Brewhouse and Longhorn, and we went out for some fancier dinner at Hy’s.

We did lunch at Garibaldi Lift Co (first time I’ve been there), and I’m surprised that this isn’t as popular as Longhorn’s - a very nice place that is even closer to the base of Whistler.

And last but not least, through no fault of the breakfast bagel, we visited Mogul’s a shocking 2 out of 4 mornings on the trip. I’m usually much closer to 100%…

Some Other Potentially Useful Information

- While I’m still 100% behind the Perimeter bus, it was naive of me to think that their buses wouldn’t contain drinking, obnoxious teenagers. One particularly annoying girl was singing for most of the ride up while her empty Absolut bottle rolled around on the bus floor.

- Why spend time getting over to Symphony Express, when you have great glade runs on the Garbanzo chair? Runs like Unsanctioned, Club 21, and In Deep seem to barely be in use and are easily accessible.

- I’m not sure if it is the time of year or simply the day of the week, but on Tuesday, we had great luck with finally getting some runs in from the Excelerator chair on Blackcomb. There are lots of decent blue runs from Excelerator that we’ve barely been on because this lift is typically crowded. On Tuesday, we didn’t have to wait at all.

- Don’t order the crab cakes as Hy’s. 2 for $15 and they are the size of a loonie.

- Mogul’s breakfast bagel is still the best food in town. If you’re going to Whistler on a budget, eat this for breakfast, lunch, and dinner :).

So there you have it. I love Whistler, and it was another great time. This will probably be the end of my snowboarding season, but perhaps I’ll make it to Blue Mountain to get one more ride in before the warm weather approaches.

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