Enjoying great skiing at Whistler-Backcomb, B.C.

by Keith and Heather Nicol     

Another great family ski holiday at Whistler

       Skiing Whistler-Blackcomb is one of our favorite family activities and on our most recent trip in early February, 2013 we had two days of stellar skiing in the bright sun and enjoyed packed powder conditions. We don’t get a chance to ski Whistler that often since we live in Corner Brook, Newfoundland but we have managed several skiing holidays there over the years.  On this visit we were joined by our son Michael, daughter Kristie and Keith brother’s Tom. One of the aspects we love about Whistler Blackcomb Ski Resort is that it is vast- encompassing 8,171 acres and its 37 lifts make the largest ski area in North America. This year the Whistler area received quite a lot of snow through December but much of January

Tom skiing in Symphony Bowl at Whistler Mountain

was quite dry. In fact they had received just 17 cm of new snow in the week before we visited. But by sticking to the upper runs in the bowls we still skied lots of soft snow on both mountains. On Friday, February 1 we decided to head up via the Creekside area  and the combination of a gondola and high speed quad chair lift quickly brought us to the top of Whistler Mountain. We did a quick warmup run on Ego bowl  and then we decided to head to the back bowls. We did a couple of great runs on Symphony Express and the open bowls served up great skiing. After lunch we took the amazing Peak to Peak Gondola which connects the 2 mountains. This allowed us to check out upper slopes on Blackcomb Mountain and it was our first time riding this amazing gondola. Our best runs here was on spectacular Blackcomb Glacier which features a huge bowl accessed by the Showcase T Bar. 

Michael skiing on 'Blue Line' on Blackcomb

      Saturday February 2 was even sunnier and warmer with the daytime temperatures reaching 1 C in the alpine. In fact it was so pleasant that we ate lunch on the outside deck at the Roundhouse on Whistler Mountain. There are not too many ski areas in Canada where you can often eat lunch in the middle of the winter at the top of a mountain.  This time we started on Blackcomb Mountain and decided to head back to Blackcomb Glacier and then we decided to head back to Whistler via the Peak to Peak Gondola. There we skied several runs on Glacier Bowl before heading back along the Burnt Stew Trail to Symphony Bowl. The Burnt Stew trail must be one of the best beginner runs in the world with its majestic scenery and wide open spaces. We finished the day with a couple of laps on  the T-bars before heading down in to Whistler Village via Ego Bowl and Upper and Lower Olympic runs.  It was great to be back at Whistler-Blackcomb and we were really impressed with the new Peak to Peak Gondola since it makes it so easy to jump back and forth between to the 2 mountains.  For more info on skiing at Whistler contact: www.whistlerblackcomb.comand for what is happening in Whistler in general contact: http://www.whistler.com/

Kristie skiing packed powder on Blackcomb Glacier

 

Whistler on Dwellable