Another year, another year of questions and answers!
In the 1980s the Whistler Question began posing a question to three to six people and publishing their responses under “Whistler’s Answers” (not to be confused with the Whistler Answer). Each week, we’ll be sharing one question and the answers given back in 1984. Please note, all names/answers/occupations/neighbourhoods represent information given to the Question at the time of publishing and do not necessarily reflect the person today.
Some context for this week’s question: This one seems pretty self explanatory, so we think we’ll leave it there.
Question: What is your New Year’s resolution?
Wendy Sayers – Student – Whistler (part-time)
I am going to lost five pounds. I make the same resolution every year, and I lose the same five pounds. We find it better not to have a set of scales up here.
Karl Asche – Student – Vancouver
I suppose I’ll get around to fixing my car.
Longbean Brassard – Brain Surgeon – Calgary
My resolution is that I won’t drink on New Year’s Day. Last year I made the same resolution and was able to live up to it for an hour.
(Editor’s Note: We interviewed Mr. Brassard early New Year’s Eve).
Personal locator beacons and cell phones have completely changed the face of adventure in only 20 years. If you are prepared and have the right equipment it is possible to be rescued in a matter hours, sometimes less, in an emergency situation. Before satellite technology and cell phones it was a different story.
Whistler Search and Rescue (WSAR) formed in 1972 after the tragic avalanche that killed four people on Whistler’s Back Bowl. The subsequent search highlighted the need for search coordination and WSAR was born.
Whistler Search and Rescue on Blackcomb Glacier in 1983. Photo courtesy of Cliff Jennings.
Brad Sills joined shortly after WSAR formed and is now in his 47th year volunteering. He recalled the process of responding to search and rescue calls in the 1970s, which would come via the RCMP in Squamish or Pemberton before Whistler had local dispatch. “The call would come to Dave [Cathers] and he would tear his hair out because almost all of his capacity for mountain rescue were hippies living in the woods without telephones. I remember him getting really mad one night going, ‘What the hell do you think I’m supposed to do? Send you losers smoke signals or something?’ We were all laughing. We taunted him a lot about being uptight and responsible.”
Despite much of the team squatting off-grid, the community was small and the ‘jungle telephone’ quite effective. It helped that everyone could usually be found in the Boot Pub each afternoon.
It also took far longer to get messages out from those in need. When someone was injured others in the party would have to get to the nearest town or house before help could be called. Typically this meant that those missing or injured spent more time in the elements, unfortunately leading to more body recovery than rescue.
In July 1979, one person of a two person climbing group fell down a crevasse on Wedge Mountain. The safe party had to mark the spot and hike to Creekside to alert the RCMP. The Local Search and Rescue who relied on personal equipment at the time, alerted Comox Search and Rescue who sent a helicopter to assist with the rescue. Whistler Question Collection.
Arriving in Whistler as the first lifts were being built, Cliff Jennings went on to become one of the first heli-ski guides in Whistler with Pacific Ski Air when it started the winter of 1967/68. Helicopters did not have the same power that they do today. After picking guests up, Pacific Ski Air would have to slowly make their way up the mountain using the available thermals.
Knowing that they had no way to send for help and that rescue could take a very long time, Cliff Jennings and Glenn Creelman tried walking out from Decker Glacier like they would have to if the helicopter broke down. (This is long before Blackcomb was developed.) Cliff is a lifetime member of WSAR, and, using the same unreliable headlamps that search and rescue used, they traversed for 13 hours, skiing the whole time until they crossed the frozen Green Lake and reached houses to make a phone call.
Pacific Ski Air at the base of Decker Glacier. Photo courtesy of Cliff Jennings.
“We said, ‘Well, if we break down we are in trouble!’ Because we’d never get regular clients out that way. They would have to say, ‘Oh I wonder where they are?’ and go looking for us, for which they would have to get another helicopter because there wasn’t another helicopter in the Valley.”
Cliff Jennings during the traverse out from Decker Glacier. Photo courtesy of Cliff Jennings.
Even the first radios that WSAR had were huge, heavy and basically line of sight. Discussing change, Vincent Massey, also a lifetime member of WSAR said, “Everyone has a cell phone now and if they have reception it is pretty easy to either call or we can ping their phone to find out. And then the people who are going way out there, who are really qualified, have a SAT phone or a SPOT beacon and they can call for help. So things have changed, and now we know what to bring and we know what the scenario is because we can either text them or call them.”
Of course, it is still imperative that everyone travels prepared and knows how to use their equipment.
Though often overshadowed by new gondolas, colourful chairlifts, and T-bars that open up exciting new terrain, rope tows are an important part of the history of skiing in Whistler. Requiring no towers, rope tows can be relatively easy and inexpensive to build and move around and have often been used to service slopes for beginners and small hills. The first ski lift operated in the Whistler valley was a tope tow built by Dick Fairhurst in 1960 using an old Ford V8 motor under the power lines along Alta Lake Road, where the Fairhursts owned Cypress Lodge. Rope tows were also used by the Rainbow Ski Area, Blackcomb Mountain, and Whistler Mountain.
During Whistler Mountain’s early seasons, rope tows were also essential to providing beginner terrain but, because they often moved around, they were not included on trail maps and can be hard to trace today. In a small, one paragraph article in November 1967, Garibaldi’s Whistler News announced the installation of a new beginner lift on Whistler Mountain, a 900-foot surface cable lift manufactured by Mighty-Mite near the upper terminal of the Blue Chair. Not finding any other information in our records, we asked around and were able to find out more about this lift, including its role in selling season passes (thank you to Lynn Mathews, Renate Bareham and Hugh Smythe for your help!).
This Mighty-Mite lift was installed for the 1967/68 season, the second full season of operations on Whistler Mountain. According to Mathews, the lift company faced two difficulties: a limited budget for building runs and lifts over the summer, and limited beginner terrain except for at the gondola base at the valley. At the time, Whistler Mountain would open on weekends as soon as there was enough snow in the alpine, but no snow in the valley meant that beginner skiers would “stand in the area around the top of the Red Chair not knowing what to do or where to go.” To alleviate this problem, the Mighty-Mite was installed around what is now the top of the Emerald Express and the Whistler terminal of the Peak to Peak Gondola. Beginners could easily ski from there to the Roundhouse and were able to download via the Red Chair and gondola. When there was more snow in the valley, the Mighty-Mite was moved down to the beginner terrain at the gondola base.
A youngster makes their way up the Mighty-Mite lift on the beginner terrain in today’s Creekside area. Whistler Mountain Ski Corporation Collection.
In late Octobers and into Novembers, the Mighty-Mite was used by Jim McConkey and the ski school to assess and train instructors for the coming season. The Mighty-Mite was also used to entice skiers to buy season passes. As Mathews recalled, the lift company needed to sell season passes in the fall in order to fund the winter operations and so the Mighty-Mite was installed at the top of the Red Chair very early one season so the lift company could take photos of people skiing at the top of Whistler Mountain. These photos were used to advertise early season skiing in newspapers in Vancouver and Seattle. People were encouraged to “buy early, ski early” and ski enough by New Year’s Day to pay off their ski pass. The campaign worked and hundreds of people bought their season passes.
The Mighty-Mite continued to be used at the top and bottom of Whistler Mountain into the 1970s until it was replaced by a Harusch Handle Tow manufactured in Squamish. Over the next decades, various forms of rope tows could be found on both Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains. Today, however, beginner terrain is more likely to be serviced by a magic carpet and rope tows have become much harder to spot in the Whistler area.
In the 1980s the Whistler Question began posing a question to three to six people and publishing their responses under “Whistler’s Answers” (not to be confused with the Whistler Answer). Each week, we’ll be sharing one question and the answers given back in 1983. Please note, all names/answers/occupations/neighbourhoods represent information given to the Question at the time of publishing and do not necessarily reflect the person today.
Some context for this week’s question: This one seems pretty self explanatory, so we think we’ll leave it there.
Question: What do you think is the most special moment of Christmas?
Joanne Deno – Student – Victoria
I think the most special moment is Christmas dinner. Everyone has a chance to sit and talk. It brings the family together for conversation after a day of running around. In our family everyone tries to be there for dinner, and it’s not really the food that’s most important.
Tim Lepard – Physician – Vancouver
I’ve got four kids, so it’s the enjoyment they get out of it that’s best. I find Christmas Eve is better than the rest because of the expectations and excitement. These kids have been wired up for Christmas for two weeks, since the snow fell in Vancouver. It’ll be nice to spend it together.
Ryan Jazic – Elementary School Student – Whistler
I like opening presents to see what we’ve got. Ripping them open is the best part. We are always surprised. Decorating the tree is good too. We’ll be doing it this week. We get up at seven Christmas morning, but our parents sleep in too late. It’s also nice to see our relatives.
