When Dave and Lynn Mathews and Hugh Smythe arrived at Fortress Mountain in September 1974, their goal was to turn the ski area around and make it saleable. Snowridge, as it was called at the time, had declared bankruptcy in 1973 and been put up for judicial sale by the Federal Business Development Bank (FBDB). […][...]
The smell of fresh doughnuts, french fries made from scratch, and fine dining on the mountain top. Baked goods, including those giant cookies, sandwiches and hot food worth freezing for; Blackcomb Mountain took on-mountain dining in the 1980s and stepped it up a notch. When they opened in 1980, Blackcomb had a real focus on […][...]
When Blackcomb Mountain opened for skiing in 1980, it had four triple lifts and one two-person chair that carried eager skiers up to the top of today’s Catskinner lift. In 1982, the Jersey Cream Chair expanded the lift-accessed terrain available on Blackcomb, but the mountain still needed something more to compete with Whistler Mountain. They […][...]
Over the past few months we’ve been sharing stories about Blackcomb Mountain and its early days of operations. Last Thursday (December 4) marked 40 years since Mayor Pat Carleton cut through the ribbon on Lift Two using a chainsaw and officially opened Blackcomb Mountain to the skiing public. This did not technically mark the beginning […][...]