Vagabond
Ski the Rockies (Canadian-style)
By Wickham Boyle with additonal reporting from David Gibbons
After the first day you begin to suspect there might be a potent additive in the air surrounding British Columbia’s Whistler-Blackcomb Ski resort. Everyone is smiling, tan, fit and full of life. It is as if (pardon my cynicism) you had fallen into a feel-good ski commune full of nothing but exquisite physical specimens. If this was a dream, I didn’t want to wake up.
I kept expecting a big, wet face-full of snow to snap me out of my reverie. Day after glorious day--snowy or sunny--I tripped into my boots and trundled off to the mountain to learn to ski.
And every day all the dismayingly good-looking and cheerful instructors would say, “No worries. We’ve all been beginners so, no worries, just have fun.” And I am thinking “Yeah, but beginners after 50 come on!” We followed their advice and rode the lifts up to a gentle bowl called Seventh Heaven to practice our turns. The views were breath-taking and the skiing superb—no false advertising there.
Whistler-Blackcomb is a double-dose resort located adjacent to Garibaldi Provincial Park in British Columbia’s Coastal Range about a 2-hour drive north of Vancouver. Imagine taking two of the largest and best laid-out ski areas in North America and placing them side-by-side, connected by an all-around resort village with top facilities and amenities—and there you have Whistler-Blackcomb. Rent a car or hop the shuttle bus at Vancouver Airport and marvel at the incredible scenery, beginning with this lovely port city itself and extending all along the highway beyond. Snow-capped peaks girded by pristine expanses of pine forest swoop down to the icy blue waters of fjord-like Howe Sound to the delight of wide-eyed travelers.
At the base of Whistler Mountain and Blackcomb Peak, the “town,” aka Whistler Village, the crown jewel of the Intrawest resort chain, offers an impressive range of lodging, dining and shopping options. Rent a big place and fill it with friends, make fires at night, cook big breakfasts in the morning, ski all day and gorge on great food at night. Or flop in a small, inexpensive motel, eat fast food and ride even faster. The choices are vast and the favorable exchange rate makes the whole range of possibilities relatively cheap. During the day, on the mountains, stoke your fires with hot beaver tail pastries or chilidogs and French fries Canadian style, with hot gravy. It seems wherever you look you can’t help but gasp at the endless vistas. A favorite landmark is a huge rock tower called the Black Tusk jutting from the vast, mountainous snowfields across the way from Seventh Heaven. These mountains elicit wonder and solace at the beauty of Mother Nature—not to mention the adrenaline rush from vertiginous drop-offs and of course the endorphin high emanating from your pumped-up muscles.
Whistler Mountain hosts a daily trek called “Fresh Tracks.” Take the gondola up to Round House Lodge at 7:30 am, enjoy a hot breakfast and then join a group of about 200 other skiers, who paid a mere $15 Canadian to head out in first light to the untouched trails. Another run not to be missed is the Blackcomb Glacier, with its year-round snowpack. To reach it, take the Showcase tee bar to the top of the Blackcomb side and then hike up another 50 to 75 yards to access the glacier, a wide-open, treeless bowl surrounded on three sides by craggy peaks and ridges. The trail stretches six miles to the Whistler Village base area. If your legs are up to it, you can ski downhill non-stop for 25 minutes, unheard of for in-bounds areas. Chances are, though, you’ll want to stop, catch your breath and absorb the scenery more than once on the way down.
For non-skiing diversions other than the usual restaurants and clothing shops, check out the custom skis and snowboards at a factory called Prior. Radically different from your everyday gear, they are all hand made by Whistler locals. Bring your own art and designs, and within weeks you could be riding your own creation.
If you crave thrills above and beyond the slopes, consider braving the Ziptrek, a cable that takes you for moderately terrifying scenic ride across the valley. You don a harness, which is then clipped to the line enabling you to zip above the treetops and over the glaciers a first-hand bird’s eye view. This is not a ride for the faint of heart; take care to dress appropriately: the wind-chill factor up there is much stronger up there than when you’re skiing on solid ground and generating your own heat.
Ski season at Whistler-Blackcomb continues until the end of May; some glacial slopes remain open until early August, when you’ll see numerous teams of national and international racers practicing.
One of the newest and most exciting options for skiing north of the border is Kicking Horse, located near Golden in eastern British Columbia, about 165 miles west of Calgary on the Trans-Canada Highway. Kicking Horse was opened in 1986 as a local ski hill called Whitetooth and operated by volunteers. Near the turn of the 21st century, it was leased to a Dutch resort company, which began the process of renovating it into a world-class destination. Situated along three ridges in the Dogtooth Range, with spectacular distant views of the main range of the Rockies across the valley, Kicking Horse features two large natural bowls near its summit and plenty of challenging cut trails on the bench below. At 4,133 feet, its vertical is second only among North American areas to Whistler-Blackcomb’s 5,280; it has nearly 3,000 acres of skiable terrain and a respectable average of 275 inches of snow per season. (Due to its moderate, relatively dry climate, not only is the snow light and feathery—Champagne Powder, they call it in the ads—but winter conditions are much more manageable than at the nearby Lake Louise or Sunshine areas, where they have a tendency to turn downright arctic.)
Perched at the top of the Kicking Horse gondola is the Eagle’s Eye restaurant, considered the pinnacle—literally and figuratively--of mountain dining in all of Canada. Its 360-degree views would be hard to beat anywhere; the ambience combines a sophisticated European flair with unpretentious, down-home Canadian hospitality and a refreshing lack of crowds. With respect to the ski area as a whole, think Jackson Hole minus the people. The season at Kicking Horse begins in mid-December and extends into April, with excellent spring skiing potential about two to four weeks later in the calendar than points further south, e.g. Utah and Colorado.
Golden, a declining railroad depot and logging town in the 1980s and 90s, is experiencing a minor revival due to the influx year-round vacationers. It’s about an eight-hour drive or more from Vancouver on the West Coast; so more likely you would start from Calgary and follow the Trans-Canada Highway west in the direction of Banff, 75 along the way and the main tourist center for the Canadian Rockies. Area history revolves around the building of the Canadian Pacific Railroad in the 1880s, a mammoth undertaking that connected the East and West Coasts of Canada and made this sparsely populated Commonwealth country into the modern nation it is today. The railroad begat the Banff Springs Hotel as well as the Chateau Lake Louise, two late Victorian landmarks still anchoring the tourist trade. Beginning around Banff and extending west for nearly 100 miles, the mountain scenery is unsurpassed, combining the vertical splendor of the rock towers of the Dolomites and the imposing majesty of the Alps. Lake Louise and its surrounding glacier-tipped peaks constitute a World Heritage site; the eponymous ski area across the valley is Canada’s most famous and, perhaps after Whistler-Blackcomb, its most popular. Lake Louise traditionally hosts the first race of each FIS World Cup ski season. Just outside of Banff, which contains the large majority of hotel, motel and condo accomodations in the area, is another world-class ski area called Sunshine, which features views of distinct, pyramid-shaped Mount Assinboine, nicknamed the Matterhorn of the Rockies.
Continuing west past Lake Louise, the Trans-Canada ascends Kicking Horse Pass, crossing the Continental Divide and the provincial border (from Alberta to British Columbia), and then quickly descends into the little town of Field, B.C. This section of track was known as The Big Hill and, at 4.5 percent grade, was the steepest in North America. In the early nineteen hundreds, after several terrifying runaway train crashes, this section of track was rebuilt as a series of spiral tunnels, in order to reduce the grade and slow the trains, a technique already in use in the mountains of Switzerland. The automobile highway, paralleling the railroad tracks, was not built until 1962.
For those who want to go the extra mile—actually it’s about a 5-mile detour—and stay at the quintessential romantic mountain getaway (again, absolutely no false advertising there), check out the Emerald Lake Lodge, just beyond Field, B.C., 25 miles west of Lake Louise and within the bounds of undeveloped Yoho National Park. During ski season, it’s a winter wonderland—you expect Santa Claus and his elves to come trudging out of the woods any minute. Amidst the solitude and rugged mountain beauty, you can cross-country ski on the lake by day and enjoy gourmet meals in the evening in the impeccably restored inn while staying in your own cozy cabin by the lake.
If Whistler-Blackcomb is the leading man and Lake Louise his female counterpart, then Kicking Horse is the new high-profile star of Canadian downhill action. By the same token, southeastern British Columbia is dotted with acolytes in the form of local ski areas that have serious qualifications if not aspirations of international glory: Fernie, Kimberley, Panorama, Big White and Red Mountain, among others. The powder is light, the steeps are plentiful, the crowds are sparse and the views are great. For more information about all the aforementioned areas, contact Resorts of the Canadian Rockies (www.skircr.com or 800-258-7669).
General Resources
www.helloBC.com
www.my WHISTLER.com
www.skibc.com
www.skialberta.net
In Whistler-/Blackcomb
www.whistlerblackcomb.com
Rentals condos to hotels rooms
*ResortQuest Whistler
www.resortquestwhistler.com 604 938 6699
*Whistler Premier Resort Accommodations
www.whistlerpremier.com
604 932 6826
*Ziptrek/ Ecotours www.ziptrek.com 604 938 6392
