48 Hours in Whistler
The drive up from Vancouver tells you a lot before you’ve even clipped in. Route 99 winds along Howe Sound, past creeks and dark green forest that look more like a Norwegian fjord or a sparkling lake than the Pacific Ocean. It’s not the high, jagged drama of the Alps but something wetter and denser, the mountains rising steeply but not sharply, their flanks thick with cedar and pine. “It’s a rainforest,” I’m told. We pass Shannon Falls, a slab of granite that wouldn’t look out of place in Yosemite, and then Squamish, where climbers and mountain bikers seem to outnumber everyone else.
An hour and forty-five minutes after leaving Vancouver, Whistler Village appears, with its pedestrian streets, outdoor shops and gondolas. This winter marks 60 years since Whistler Mountain opened in 1966 at Creekside, and 45 years since Blackcomb followed. It’s a milestone season for a resort long known for its size: 8,100 acres, or a vertical mile, and the two mountains connected by the Peak 2 Peak gondola. If you have only two days, the question is simpler. How do you ski it well?
Before I hit the snow, I visit the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre, just above the village. The building echoes a Squamish longhouse and a Lil’wat Istken, an earthen dwelling. Inside, we’re welcomed with a hand drum song and a short film about “where the river, mountains and people meet”. We’re divided into groups for the tour; mine is Cacao, which means wolf.
There are over 200 First Nations across Canada, not just the two whose territory Whistler sits on. The Lil’wat once crossed these mountain ranges to trade with coastal Squamish communities, long before lifts or queue lines. The mountains here were busy long before anyone thought to ski down them.
The following morning, I grab a coffee and breakfast roll from Lift Coffee opposite the Whistler Village Gondola and meet Joan-Marc Moreno from Extremely Canadian on the patio of the Carleton Lodge. Originally from the Pyrenees, he moved to Whistler in 2017 and stayed. It’s sunny, but with no fresh snow.
“We’ll adapt to what we’ve got,” he says. “As every day in the mountains, you get the most out of the conditions.”
We warm up on the runs Fitzsimmons, Garbanzo, Emerald and Lower Whisky Jack. They are corduroy but still a bit firm in the morning sun. On the Emerald Chairlift, Joan-Marc points across the terrain. “Everything here has a name. Monkey Butt, Jimmy Z, Surprise… and over there, that double drop. It feels like a stadium on powder days. People line up and cheer.” From Peak Chair, dropping into Whistler Bowl, he points to the glacier below. “In the 70s, a groomer could drive across that. Now look at it. Probably sixty feet lower than it used to be.”
Peter Smart, co-founder of Extremely Canadian, joins us briefly and leaves me one tip that sticks. “Keep your elbows in.” Apparently, I ski with my elbows sticking outwards. I have been told before that I need to be a little more ‘T. Rex’ here.
Over lunch Joan-Marc builds on this. “You need to be more active through the turn. Skiing is dynamic, like a wave. You move up in transition, down through the turn at first. But as you advance, you extend early and move your centre of mass toward the fall line. Build pressure on the downhill ski continuously.”
By the time we drop towards Little Whistler and traverse to ‘Staggered Home,’ a steep double black diamond run, I’m thinking less about survival and more about shape and rhythm.
We cross on the Peak 2 Peak gondola, suspended between the mountains on just four towers. Ravens circle high above. “Whisky jacks stay near the tree line,” Joan-Marc says. “Ravens go higher.” Marmots, he reminds me, are why the town is called Whistler; their warning call echoing from the rocks.
Arriving in Blackcomb, the terrain feels sharper. “Mid-mountain here drops more directly into the fall line,” says Joan-Marc. “There are more options close by. I just love Spanky’s area, he adds, referring to the boot pack-to alpine bowls off Spanky’s Ladder.
We lunch at Christine’s, 1,860 metres, where I admire the Caesar cocktails being brought out – Canada’s answer to a Bloody Mary with a cocktail sausage on top. Meanwhile,l Joan Marc points out across the valley where Pemberton lies, once a Lil’wat settlement, now farmland.
Next we head out into steeper stuff. We take the 7th Heaven chair and ski a groomer on Cloud Nine to reset the legs, then skier’s right of Saudan Couloir. It’s steep and bumpy at the top, consequential enough to focus the mind. The main line is icy, so we take the right-hand variation. “It’s more exposed, but has softer snow and is a mellower pitch,” Joan-Marc says. Still not somewhere you’d want to fall casually.
After a quick high five at the bottom of the couloir, we carry on through Quasar and Feather Trees — more open glades than tight forest, rolling off the Blackcomb Glacier. From there it’s down to Crystal and Ridge Runner, then three laps on the Glacier Chair, including Dave’s Day Off: a short traverse, then a drop into sun-softened snow that’s slushy on top but still holds an edge if you stay centred.
Watching video clips later, Joan-Marc finds that I was “pinching too much from the hips.” By the afternoon runs it looks better. “Super nice body position. Shins parallel. Good rhythm. If you weren’t a solid skier, I wouldn’t take you into the middle of Saudan.” Whether that’s guide diplomacy or not, my legs confirm it’s been a full day.
I ask which mountain he prefers. “Blackcomb,” he says without hesitation. Old Whistler versus Blackcomb loyalties die hard. “The patrol teams still play jokes on each other.”
That evening I visit Vallea Lumina, a forest walk of light and sound that takes over Cougar Mountain after dark. We wander between glowing trees in the woods before roasting marshmallows and playing a few rounds of ‘cornhole’ as we wait for the free ten-minute shuttle back to the village.
Dinner is at BALAM, which takes its name from the jaguar in Mayan, a nod to its roots. I order too much. Ceviche, prawn skewers, tacos, and steak.
“It’s not a restaurant,” the team say. “It’s a celebration of Latin American cuisine.” Being ninety minutes from the Pacific helps with the offerings. “People don’t expect fresh fish in a ski town. But it’s caught and brought up the same day.”
Back at my hotel, the Pan Pacific, I venture to the heated outdoor pool and jacuzzi that face the slopes. I get in and stay there longer than planned.
With over two hundred trails, thirty-seven lifts and three glaciers, chasing numbers in Whistler is pointless. You won’t ski everything in forty-eight hours.
“Would I wish it to be amazing? Yes,” Joan-Marc says. “But you ski what you have.”
He’s been here since 2017 and shows no signs of leaving. Sixty years on, Whistler still has that effect on people.
All images copyright Katy Dartford
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