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Whistler Trip Planner - to maximize time/skiing/$
- avajane
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Drive Timing/Gear/Tickets/Boarder Crossing
Do not go on Friday afternoon at 3:00! You will get in a traffic jam getting to Everett and Marysville, at the boarder and thru Vancouver. Leave by 11-1 and you will be much better off. Or......leave late if you are not afraid of driving in the dark. There is not a high mountain pass to go over and most of the time the road is great.
Rent your gear ahead of time somewhere else! Don't take a friend without gear that wants to rent at Creekside. You will waste your morning and then get stuck in a Gondola line and be pissed. Treat this as a big deal which it is! Be prepared and don't expect to do things in the morning other than getting to the lift 15 minutes early. If you get there early on Friday then by all means rent gear there.
Get an Edge Pass online and pick it up Friday afternoon in Creekside, Below the GLC in Whistler Village, or in the Blackcomb Daylodge. Early season lines will kill you on Saturday morning.
Dont go home Sunday afternoon from the Village. Everybody else is doing that! It's always a traffic jam. Stay till Monday morning or drive home late, or at least park in Creekside to avoid most of the jam.
Go the Truck crossing every time and stop at the last Duty Free and buy me a bottle for giving you this advise! Follow the Blue overhead sign that says business or Duty Free or something and get a cheap liter of booze. Cut back and merge in and you will never wait more than 20 -25 minutes. No Duty Free at Peace Arch. Lynden takes at least 15 minutes longer. Go back via Lynden only if you can save an 45 minutes worth of boarder wait.
Listen to AM 1130 in Vancouver for traffic and border reports.
Early Season and Storms
Whistler Blackcomb is big but gets small in a hurry if the Alpine lifts are closed. They are almost always closed after a large dump of snow that continues into the weekend. If the mid mountain has lots of snow (200 cm) then you ski the trees down low. If the mid mountain is still short of snow you will be hating life and wishing you didn't spend the money! The upper lifts gradually open during December but can't be counted on. The trees cannot be counted on until mid January lots of times. Last year trees were almost never an option. The Alpine is so large that they cannot open when there is bad avalanche danger and you also have to follow what the signs say. If it says closed they will pull your pass! If it says temporary boundary you are at your own risk and can hike or ski rocks. I advised people not to go up last weekend and I think the Alpine stayed closed the whole time. Crystal Chair is not the Alpine.
Beginners
Whistler is not a beginners area. There are very few flat, learning style areas. Whistler mid station Gondola is best. As this is low elevation the weather and snow are not always good. Teach people on Daisy at Stevens Pass. You will lose your new girlfriend telling her that there are lots of green runs up there. Whistler is great for intermediates and there is always a cat track to get down. Conditions in the Alpine, however, are often brutal and require advanced skills. Whistler is best for very good skiers that can follow the best snow, sun, and visibility wherever that leads. Beginners are also intimated by being in such a large place. Day skiing in Washington is great!
Tickets
Buy an Edge Pass! Shell used to give deals and sometimes REI or Costco may have passes.
Gotta go to a dinner party now but will come back with more stuff later.
Brian
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- haggis
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Wish the alpine was open because you are right, it got tracked within minutes and was busy although we skipped the long lines and had 5 mins max wait. Still fun, but the full mountain with touring potential is where its really at.
Thanks for your replies over prior to last weekend, you've been our man on the ground!
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- avajane
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- johndonee
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Thanks!
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- avajane
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- johndonee
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Thanks!I think you should send Silas Wild a personal message. I'm sure he's slept in every parking lot west of Colorado Springs. I do know that they have a campground NE of town.
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- pipedream
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The Conference Center and Library garages offer $5 overnight parking, but I don't know how they'd handle someone sleeping in their vehicle: www.whistler.ca/services/transportation/parking
You can park on the even-numbered sides of the streets in the subdivisions between 5pm-9am M-F (and from 5pm F until 9am M), but those spots are hard to come by and I wonder if the RCMP would pay you a visit. Your best bet is probably looking for something just outside of town (e.g. a TH, sno-park equivalent, etc.). I second the suggestion to PM Silas.
As for day parking suggestions in Whistler, depending on when you get up there in the morning and where you want to ski, I suggest parking either at Creekside or Base II. The former gets you on the hill faster and helps you beat traffic on the way out (assuming you skip apres). The latter allows you to ski right back to your car, a rare delicacy at Whistler.
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- Jim Oker
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- bfree32
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- avajane
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- ddk
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- oftpiste
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- avajane
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Go clubbing on Tuesdays at Tommy Africa's
Go clubbing on Wednesdays at Buffalo Bills
Thursday's might be Garfinkels (someone else can fill that in)
Go after 1030-1100
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- avajane
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I just made another complaint that Whistler isn't open in the late Springtime like it used to be. No big surprise that 7th Heaven melted out with its bad exposure. It's been a great season up north but it would be nice to have others help try to convince them that we should still be skiing the great north facing bowls at Whistler.
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- avajane
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- avajane
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$859 US gets you a full pass for Whistler and lots of Tahoe, Colorado, and Utah.
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- avajane
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- Charlie Hagedorn
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- avajane
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- avajane
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It's getting more crowded and especially more noticeable on the weekends. Show up at the Gondola 15 - 30 minutes early. They will very often start early anyway to try to keep the que from getting too long. If the Alpine is too crowded then go hike Flute and get fresh snow there.The lines normally go down after lunch...always on Sundays. Or...Go top to bottom. The Creekside Gondola seldom has much of a line by late morning. I'll be up this Thursday for a full week and it looks good. Send me a pm if you want to ski a run.
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- Kiddch
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- avajane
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- Kiddch
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It's an unsettled week at Whistler. Snow every day right through the weekend. 4-8 inches give or take each day through Thursday, a quiet day Friday (be nice to have good vis to explore my first day), with the potential for a foot or more Saturday into Sunday.
No epic dumps, but nice, steady snow to go along with the 3 feet plus they've had in the past 48 hours!
With snows like that how do you think the alpine might be affected? Friday looks good. Saturday could be storm day skiing, but hopefully the alpine will be open. Any thoughts you have on good places on a storm day are appreciated. Sunday morning might dawn with significant new snow. Any advice you have on powder day lift opening is also appreciated. How much snow does it typically take to keep the alpine closed after a storm?
Appreciate your help trying to make my first trip as efficient and productive as possible.
Hope your Alps adventure is going well!
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- avajane
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Have fun and report back.
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- avajane
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- avajane
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