# Whistler: What a Dissapointment



## DexterMichigan (Feb 18, 2009)

I have been waiting for years to go to Whistler and just got back this week. What a disappointing mountain. Blackcomb was pretty decent, but Whistler Mountain was boring and it seemed every run had flats. Maybe skiiers like cross-country skiing on every run, but I'm guess they don't like it either. So why all the love for this place. I'd size it up as a general disappointment and not nearly as interesting as Colorado or Utah.

And, then there is the fake "Village." I was looking forward to Canadian hospitality, and all I found was Australian stoners making it hard to get a decent meal.


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## grafta (Dec 21, 2009)

Well done, you figured it out all by yourself 

Yes they do have a really good marketing department.

What, did you ride groomers the whole time? Sure there are the 'roads' you end up on to traverse to different lifts but not sure how you'd say that it's a "boring" place to ride :laugh:

"fake "Village."" and lack of "Canadian hospitality" You went to a tourist mecca, what did you expect? Anyone here could've told you that. Did the Australians that run the place not say "Eh" enough? :laugh:

Sorry dude, I actually do sympathize with you. It's just too easy to poke holes in the 'Whis' experience is all.


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## AIRider (Dec 25, 2010)

DexterMichigan said:


> I have been waiting for years to go to Whistler and just got back this week. What a disappointing mountain. Blackcomb was pretty decent, but Whistler Mountain was boring and it seemed every run had flats. Maybe skiiers like cross-country skiing on every run, but I'm guess they don't like it either. So why all the love for this place. I'd size it up as a general disappointment and not nearly as interesting as Colorado or Utah.
> 
> And, then there is the fake "Village." I was looking forward to Canadian hospitality, and all I found was Australian stoners making it hard to get a decent meal.


You obviously didn't stay there long enough to discover la Montagne to its full potential. Name us some runs you did if you remember.


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## DexterMichigan (Feb 18, 2009)

I really should have made the point that all the Canadians I encountered were really nice. It would just have been nice to see some more of them. Maybe I had unreasonable expectations from all the hype. I mostly do ski groomer, with some powder, but it was very rocky from the mediocre snow in places and the trees are very tightly packed, so I thought a lot of tree snowboarding was above my level.

I wanted to share my experience as I think most other Americans are similarly accosted by the media proclaiming Whistler the greatest ski mountain on earth. Funny, the one negative that people report, the fog, wasn't too bad, except a few times. However, given the higher price for Americans (plus the current negative exchange rate), the average-to-poor Whistler Mountain (the vertical drop is useless since you really can't find good enough conditions top-to-bottom all at once), the hard coastal snow (felt like Sierra Cement only harder on my ass), and lack of anything resembling "local," I don't think I will try that again. Also, I must say the signage was not very good, more like a European mountain (i.e., they don't ID runs).


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## DexterMichigan (Feb 18, 2009)

AIRider said:


> You obviously didn't stay there long enough to discover la Montagne to its full potential. Name us some runs you did if you remember.


I would like to, but your avatar picture is distracting me 

I did like the 7th Heaven area on Blackcomb, and the Dave Miller Downhill on Whistler. I wanted to like a bunch of the groomers by Harmony and Symphony bowls, but the flat runouts at the end and in the middle of several runs made me not want to go back there to work so hard.


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## grafta (Dec 21, 2009)

DexterMichigan said:


> the average-to-poor Whistler Mountain (the vertical drop is useless since you really can't find good enough conditions top-to-bottom all at once)


Sorry that the mountain is so big that conditions change at certain altitudes :laugh:

When was your trip?


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## AIRider (Dec 25, 2010)

It is true that if you don't know the terrain, and you don't get enough speed at certain parts of the groomers, you will be getting stuck. 

For us locals it's an amazing mountain, because it's so close and the costs are far less than for someone coming out of country. I'm sorry you had a bad experience, as it's truly an amazing place to boar once you find your niche of runs to take.


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## fattrav (Feb 21, 2009)

grafta said:


> "fake "Village."" and lack of "Canadian hospitality" You went to a tourist mecca, what did you expect? Anyone here could've told you that. *Did the Australians that run the place not say "Eh" enough?* :laugh:


No, the Australians would have said 'bro', because the only Australians that work, are New Zealanders.

OP That sucks to hear that it wasn't that great. I will admit that I once wanted to go to Whistler, but thanks to this forum, I know that there are alot more other places out there to get the good from.


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## chupacabraman (Jul 30, 2009)

Nothing I wouldn't expect... it's a coastal mountain (which means generally not too steep and crappy snow quality), and a tourist mecca which gets 2 million skier visits annually... That pretty much sums up how good the riding is there IMO.
The park's good though


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## BigmountainVMD (Oct 9, 2011)

AIRider said:


> It is true that if you don't know the terrain....


This is the only thing that detracted from my Whistler experience. The place is so huge there is no way to know where the treasure is unless you have a guide. Couple that with the fog or cloudy/snow conditions... it is understandable how one might find themselves stuck in a flat section, or in my case, accidentally popping my cliff drop cherry at the top of Blackcomb...

**whiteout conditions** "Did that sign say cliff?" Luckily there was a few feet of fresh to catch me...

Also, based on our experience in Vancouver at the Volcano Lounge, my friends an I all thought it was legal to puff tough wherever we pleased...

Found out that was not the case by a couple of friendly Canadian officers...


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## Milo303 (Apr 6, 2009)

Whistler looks pretty good from this angle


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## DexterMichigan (Feb 18, 2009)

I snowboarded there from January 14-18. The snow was coming down (good powder of 1-3 inches per day, just not very deep in all the woods and off the runs in the bowls yet). It was also freakishly cold (I was told) for Whistler at between -25 - -16 C / something around -5 - +5 F (I actually got some mild frostbite on my face on my last day). I think you are probably right, if I had more time, I would been able to find more things to my liking and skill level, but I wanted to share my experience, as an interloper coming with high expectations. I only get one or maybe two good 3-4 days ski trips every year (aside from my local trash dump ski lift), so I never have time to learn everything about a mountain. It was terrifically beautiful there, and I generally enjoyed my trip, I just was very underwhelmed compared with places like Steamboat, Breckenridge, and Lake Tahoe. My 2 cents.

Perhaps my skill level was also not good enough to get the best experience, but I did mostly blue and black groomers and a few black mogul runs, but very little off trail.


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## Milo303 (Apr 6, 2009)

I've never been to Canada but the way I understand it is like this

Whistler is just a resort with a ton of snow

It's the BC around whistler that's incredible. The terrain I see in videos around BC is absolutely breath taking, nothing anywhere near it that I've seen in CO


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## mjd (Mar 13, 2009)

the last two times i was there it was 50/50. when it sucked it really sucked. when it was good it was insane. the 'town' has changed since the olympics. definitely not the same vibe.


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## grafta (Dec 21, 2009)

DexterMichigan said:


> The snow was coming down (good powder of 1-3 inches per day


Yeah, that's not a lot. I rode Whis on the 5th Jan after a dump, more like 8-10 inches. They opened the Alpine later in the day and we scored some really nice deep pow turns in some of the glades off peak to creek.

For reference, up above tree line it was really wind blown and scoured out with rocks n shit sticking out where it wasn't groomed. Below the glades (a hundred or so meters below glades and amazing pow) we rode the worst knee destroying death bumps of icy doom back to creekside. Early season fun :laugh:

This thread makes me think: gee I booked a trip to indonesia and indo now sucks because I didn't score good waves. Don't go there :laugh: It happens man, mother nature and all that shit :thumbsup:


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## DexterMichigan (Feb 18, 2009)

Hey, it's all about weather, right? -5F was ok, but the wind was around 40mph and gusting to 80mph so the windchill was some ungodly negative number. At one point, I was doing a single run, going into the lodge for hot cocoa, and repeating because even with 8 layers of clothing I still couldn't keep my hands warm. But, a bad day snowboarding beats a good day working. Good luck in Indonesia.

BTW, the alpine area on Blackcomb 7th Heaven had even stronger winds, but the reason I went up there so much was because there was clearer visibility and much fewer people (except of course when snowfall got heavy, then it was like the moon, just white everywhere with no trees.


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## grafta (Dec 21, 2009)

DexterMichigan said:


> Hey, it's all about weather, right?... Good luck in Indonesia.


I'm not going to indo, I was trying to make a point. I was meaning to say that you can't blame mother nature for fucking up your trip (but I think you got that bit)... or a lack of knowledge of a place for not dishing up the goods.

Don't get me wrong, I had a slightly crazy day up there yesterday that probably wasn't really worth the effort. I'm good with that though, I learnt a few things and will peg it up as experience :thumbsup:


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## SnowRock (Feb 28, 2011)

I was last at Whistler pre-Olympics and I pretty much had the exact opposite experience. We got dumped on though.. one of those big storms of like 50+ inches in 4-5 days. Was with a pretty big group of mixed experience level riders/skiers and many of us including me hadn't really had a true powder day before.. I remember the blackomb glacier area was perfect to get used to the pow experience before getting on some more challenging stuff. 

We had made plans for a cat trip but they weren't heading out and we had a blast regardless at the mountain. I got stuck in some deep stuff one day which was tough, but figured that was the price to pay for not having local knowledge. 

We got super lucky on our last day with some sun, dying wind and and a friendly local who took us from one part of the mtn to go wait on line with him at the peak chair. Our group was split up at the time so it was just 3-4 of us.. we were about 20th in line when they opened the chair. Most people seemed to be heading right but he suggested we go left and would have a better shot of less tracked stuff so we followed. Can't remember the trail name off the top of my head but it was pretty darn steep and narrow before opening up... especially for an east coaster who had only been out west once before at that time and never had that much fresh to ride.


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## Grizz (Nov 10, 2008)

Have not been to WB post Olympics so factor that into my opinion.

Going to WB to ride groomers is like going to the Super Bowl for the halftime show. I've been there when the weather and base sucked, never again. The only way to do WB is on 24 hours (or less) notice. When it's on I can't think of a place I'd rather be.

For the Canadian vibe you should have traveled to small interior BC areas like Red Mt, Whitewater, etc. with real towns nearby full of folks not employed by the local ski area. I'll never forget the Hotel Ymir, tons of character and characters!


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## chupacabraman (Jul 30, 2009)

I love to knock Whistler but in truth it is a f*cking awesome place (just not for me)


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