Last winter, I had the honor of once again tagging along with the Giglio and Barry men to ski for a week out at Whistler Blackcomb in British Columbia. It started off with our connecting flight in Toronto being delayed over 6 hours, resulting in us arriving at our place in the early morning hours on Sunday the 27th. But we were excited and even on lack of sleep were able to get our “bonus day” in on the slopes.

The first couple days were plagued by warm weather and poor visibility from fog. It rained on Tuesday in the village and lower mountain, so we spent most of it shopping and searching for souvenirs. The village of Whistler is fantastic, rivaling Vail in every way. Everything was so pedestrian friendly and had a ton of variety to choose from. There was a nice Whistler Museum detailing the history of the area, including the 2010 Olympic Games.

Wednesday morning we saw our first instances of untouched fresh feet of powder. It was so glorious. We ventured over to Lakeside Bowl off of 7th Heaven and had the best skiing this side of Vail’s Back Bowls. Combine beautiful vistas overlooking Whistler, the perfect pitch and smooth bowl, and feet of powder that made for the ultimate skiing experience. Thankfully there was plenty of acres to continue to find fresh tracks though Thursday morning.

Thursday afternoon we ended early so we could ride on the bobsleigh at the Whistler Sliding Centre. It was super cool to do, though be warned that if you’re not prepared to hold your head right, you WILL get raddled around like a doll and get a headache.

Friday and Saturday offered us picture perfect blue skis, and the moguls and groomers were equally lovely to ski on. We left Saturday night to get back to Vancouver to stay at the airport hotel before our early morning flight back to Boston. Vancouver definitely looks like a vibrant city to visit on another trip.

Whistler and Blackcomb have some ridiculous elevations that allow for the inches of rain in the village at 2,200’ elevation to be feet of powder at 7th Heaven on Blackcomb (7,350’) and Harmony bowl (6,940’). This results in long lifts and the need to take 2 or even 3 lifts to get from the village to the summit, but it’s well worth the wait. Peak to Creek was the longest continuous ride we did, dropping 5,000’ of elevation over 5 miles.

Overall it was an awesome vacation. The place we stayed at was an 8 minute walk in ski boots to the lifts, and had a great hot tub for apres. It might have been slightly janky (the fridge was tiny and the washing machine broke) but good enough for sleeping and eating. Would highly recommend any skiers to get yourself out here at least once in your lifetime for minimum 4 days of skiing. And bring your camera, the views are just too pretty too forget them!

Skiing Highlight Video

Bobsleighing Video

Silver Bullets Video

Photo Gallery

Stats

Strava

Trail Map