Tag: Hugh Smythe

Mountain Washrooms: BlackcombMountain Washrooms: Blackcomb

October 14, 2025 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Though Whistler Mountain opened for skiing in January 1966 with no Roundhouse and few on-mountain amenities, when Blackcomb Mountain began its operations in December 1980 the Rendezvous Lodge and the daylodge at Base II were both already up and running. Over the years, as Blackcomb gained more customers, these facilities were added onto and more were added, including the Glacier Creek Lodge in 1993.

In 1980, both the Rendezvous and the daylodge offered food services run by the Parsons family and were fulling equipped with running water and washroom facilities. According to Hugh Smythe, president of Blackcomb Ski Enterprises, his experiences with washrooms at Whistler Mountain led him to believe that these facilities were not going to be enough. He recalled discussions with the architects where he tried to convince them to add more washrooms to the plans but both the design of the buildings and the budget prevented adding more facilities. As Blackcomb skier visits increased, more washrooms were added to the Rendezvous through the addition of construction washroom trailers that were bolted to the bottom floor. When the building was expanded and Christine’s Restaurant was added, the bottom floor was also expanded and more washrooms were included in the building, replacing the trailers.

Blackcomb Mountain didn’t just advertise its women’s washrooms, it also took promotional photos of the men’s room. Blackcomb Mountain Collection, Randy Lincks

Blackcomb Mountain decided to take no chances when it came to planning the washroom facilities for the Glacier Creek Lodge, though the building itself did come close to looking entirely different than it does today. Smythe remembers that the team at Blackcomb, then owned by Intrawest Resort Holdings Inc., originally asked the architects for a shed roof design, similar to the Bugaboo Lodge and the daylodge at Sunshine Village. Situated at the bottom of the Jersey Cream Express and the Glacier Express, the 1,000 seat restaurant was designed to look up the lift lines and capture as much sunlight as possible and featured industrial elements such as metal beams. As they neared the construction window, however, Blackcomb asked for an architectural rendering that they could put on display. According to Smythe, despite having seen all of the plans and being involved in the process, one look at the rendering was enough to realize that the design was all wrong.

Glacier Creek Lodge on Blackcomb Mountain. Insight Photography Collection

Blackcomb engaged new architects, a husband and wife team called Lutz & Associates, and got to work on a new design. Smythe recalled one presentation at which the architects had something under a sheet in the middle of the table. Throughout the presentation, Smythe kept getting distracted by the mysterious object until finally they pulled the sheet off to reveal a model of Glacier Creek Lodge. Like with the architectural rendering, one look was enough for Smythe to say, “That’s what we need.” Metal beams were switched for large log posts and there was even money in the budget to commission root chandeliers from Eric Skragg.

By October 1993, the 30,000 sq ft Glacier Creek Lodge was nearing completion. It included 1,000 seats spread out over two levels, an additional 600 seat patio, and ten food court stations. According to the Whistler Question, the building also included “one of the largest washrooms in North America, complete with 38 stalls.” The size of the washrooms was even used in the marketing for the new facility. In November 1993, the Question featured an image captured by photojournalist Bonny Makarewicz showing a line of toilets before the partitions were installed and captioned “OK! Who left the seat up? Toilets in the ladies room sit awaiting stalls in the new Glacier Creek restaurant, Tuesday. The women’s can will feature 38 toilets.” A similar image and caption was also used in a ski magazine.

A line of stalls in the Glacier Creek Lodge washroom. Blackcomb Mountain Collection, Randy Lincks

Whistler Mountain renovated Pika’s restaurant that same season, doubling the size and increasing the women’s washrooms from nine to 26 stalls. By the 1990s, both mountains had come a long way from the amenities and outhouses offered to early skiers on Whistler Mountain.

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Mountain Washrooms: WhistlerMountain Washrooms: Whistler

October 7, 2025 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 2 Comments

When Whistler Mountain opened for skiing in the winter of 1965/66, it wasn’t known for its on-mountain amenities. Even after the Roundhouse was built in the summer of 1966, the only facilities on the top of the mountain were nearby outhouses.

The maintenance of these outhouses fell under the purview of Whistler Mountain’s paid ski patrol. John Hetherington, who joined the patrol in the 1967/68 season, remembered shoveling out and cleaning the outhouses as an “ugly job.” According to fellow patroller Hugh Smythe, Hugh gained quite a lot of experience cleaning and restocking the facilities in his first year on the patrol, often using rescue equipment such as ice axes. He described these duties as “the glamour of being a ski patroller.”

The Roundhouse before the balcony and the lower level were enclosed. Whistler Mountain Ski Corporation Collection

One of the first major renovations of the Roundhouse involved digging out and enclosing a lower floor which would include indoor washrooms. According to Garibaldi’s Whistler News, this was done in part due to skier demands. Doing so presented a couple of problems as at the time, the Roundhouse did not have water and some high points of rock beneath the Roundhouse made the space more a crawlspace than another level.

The first problem was solved by hiring a professional water dowser from Vancouver Island. He arrived with a willow stick and was able to find running water near enough to the Roundhouse that the lift company was able to install a pump and have enough water for the newly installed kitchen and for washrooms. The second problem involved removing some of the rock that the Roundhouse was built on.

Smythe had a blasting ticket because of his patrol work doing avalanche control but, as he recalled, “no experience blasting rock.” He drilled some holes and covered the area in sheets of plywood, then added explosives. Luckily, only one piece of rock went through the main floor of the Roundhouse, though others were embedded in the ceiling. Once the debris was cleared out, washrooms and additional seating were added to the space.

A new building that included additional washrooms under construction in front of the Roundhouse. Whistler Question Collection, 1979

While the addition of indoor washrooms was a big step for Whistler Mountain, the lift company continued to experience washroom woes. The Roundhouse now had four stalls in the women’s washroom, two stalls and two urinals in the men’s washroom, and the pre-existing outhouses. The facilities, however, were still not sufficient for the number of skiers on the mountain on a busy day and Smythe recalled that the lineups for the women’s washroom would be “horrendous.” At one point, season pass holders signed a petition for additional women’s washroom facilities, as the women had gotten tired of waiting in the line and the rest of their group had gotten tired of waiting for them, sometimes for over half an hour. Mirrors were moved from the washroom to the hallway to discourage any lingering, clips were installed to keep the sleeves of one-piece ski suits off the ground, and there were even staff stationed at the washrooms with stopwatches. None of these measures were particularly effective and Smythe remembered some skiers, tired of waiting in line, decided to “just storm the men’s.”

The Roundhouse after renovations. Whistler Question Collection, 1980

In 1979, a new building was installed beside the Roundhouse that included extra washrooms, a new ski school office, a ski repair shop, and a sewer plant. When the Roundhouse Lodge was completely rebuilt in 1998, the new building boasted much larger washroom facilities than the original structure. His experiences with both the outhouses and the Roundhouse facilities left a lasting impression on Hugh Smythe that would inform future developments in his career.

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Binty was hereBinty was here

September 29, 2025 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

Operating from 1965 to 1992, the first gondola installed on Whistler Mountain was a hard working lift that brought skiers (and later snowboarders) from the valley base at today’s Creekside to the bottom of the Red Chair. Gondola cars from this lift can still be found today throughout the valley and beyond, including in the Whistler Museum. They often show signs of their years of use, from dents to scratches to added stickers. If you look closely at some of the gondola cars, you might even find a name or two scratched into the surface. One name that could be found on many of the cars over the years was Binty, also known as Vincent Massey.

The original Whistler Mountain gondola. Whistler Mountain Ski Corporation Collection

The Massey family began visiting in the early 1960s when Geoffrey Massey, the well known architect, became involved in the Garibaldi Olympic Development Association. He and his wife Ruth brought their four children, including Binty, up to ski regularly. Looking back at his childhood visits to Whistler Mountain, Binty recalled a low of snow, slow lifts, and long line ups. According to him, “It was such a cold ride up, it would take about 40 or 50 minutes to get up out of the valley to the Roundhouse because the lifts were so slow.” By the time they reached the Roundhouse, they would be so cold that they would go straight inside to warm up. Despite this, to Binty, Whistler was “a big deal, it was a big mountain.”

According to Hugh Smythe, who began working for Whistler Mountain soon after it opened in 1966, Binty and his “mischievous look” became well known to lift company employees, especially after his name started appearing on more and more gondola cars. As Hugh saw it, “his goal was to carve his name in the plastic of the gondola cars in every car.” Unfortunately, this made lift company president Franz Wilhelmsen “apoplectic” and one of Hugh’s assigned tasks was to try and catch Binty in the act.

Binty Massey in his Whistler pottery studio. Whistler Question Collection, 1991

Binty, who grew up in Horseshoe Bay, moved to Whistler full-time after finishing high school. Unfortunately for him, the winter of 1976/77 is best remembered by those who there as the year that Whistler Mountain closed for skiing for three weeks in January. Warm rain after the holidays worsened already marginal conditions and then the weather got cold and dry, which made for great ice skating but no skiing. After working construction in Whistler for a year, Binty decided to go to art school.

A few decades late, after Binty and his wife Cheryl and moved back to Whistler and started a family, his labeling of the gondola cars appeared again in what might seem like an unexpected setting: a fundraising event of the Myrtle Philip Community School (MPCS) Parent Advisory Council (PAC).

Hugh Smythe reenacts his days working for the lift company as a lineup of parents look on. Whistler Question Collection, 1992

The Amuse Cruises of the 1990s were held to raise money for the MPSC, which opened in its Lorimer Road location in September 1992. They were held at the Fairmont Chateau and featured skits put together by the parents from different classes. One such skit at the event held in November 1992 featured a recently-decommissioned gondola car and Hugh Smythe reenacting some of the tasks that came up during his early days working for Whistler Mountain, including attempts to stop Binty from adding his name to the lift.

While the gondola car included in the skit made it a bit more obvious (“Binty was here” was painted on in large letters), it’s likely that if any attendees had examined it closely, they might have found the familiar name scratched into a window at least twenty years before.

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Building a Fortress: Part IIIBuilding a Fortress: Part III

July 29, 2025 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

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). Over the 1974/75 ski season, Dave, Lynn, Hugh and their employees turned Fortress into a successful ski resort, which meant that the time had come to sell the operation for the FBDB.

When Dave and Hugh met with Ken Miller of FBDB about selling Fortress, they suggested that they approach Aspen Skiing Corp (later Aspen Ski Co), then the largest ski company in North America and considered “the top of the pecking order.” A small ski area in Alberta seemed like an unlikely investment for Aspen, but a series of events in Colorado made it a surprisingly good time to approach the company.

According to Hugh, they had heard that Darcy Brown, the president of Aspen, was having trouble getting some approvals for developments they wanted to do at Snowmass and so was looking at other potential projects. He was even reported to have made a statement at a public meeting about taking Aspen’s money out of not just the county but the country, which made it seem like an ideal time to approach the company. They traveled to Colorado to pitch Fortress to Darcy and in 1975 Aspen decided to buy half of the ski resort, leaving the other half with the FBDB.

Aspen President Darcy Brown, Mayor Pat Carleton and Aspen’s Jerry Blann at breakfast in Whistler. Whistler Question, 1979

Once the sale was completed, Dave and Lynn took a bit of time off and then returned to Whistler to manage the Whistler Inn and Resort for Jack and Ann Bright. In June 1975, Aspen asked Hugh to continue managing Fortress. He decided to stay and, like he had while working for Garibaldi Lifts Ltd., began taking night school classes to learn more about the business side of skiing, this time at SAIT in Calgary.

Over the next few years at Fortress, Hugh got Aspen to invest in the resort’s first triple chair (Aspen needed some convincing that with mazing, singles lines, and clear instructions, triple chairs could be fully loaded) and Fortress began to make a profit. Then, in 1977, a couple of things happened that would influence Whistler’s development; Paul Mathews contacted Hugh and suggest that they work together on a development proposal for Blackcomb Mountain and 20th Century Fox made a lot of money off of the success of Star Wars merchandising.

Jerry Blann and Hugh Smythe from Fortress Mountain Resorts present the Blackcomb development to the public in November 1978. Whistler Question Collection, 1978

Though the official call for proposals for Blackcomb had not yet been put out by the province of British Columbia, Paul and Hugh, along with engineer Ken Farquharson, began putting together a bid. To secure financing, they decided to pitch it to the Aspen board of directors. While that pitch didn’t get very far with the board, Al Raine, then in charge of provincial ski area coordination, reached out to Jerry Blann, who worked in planning for Aspen. Aspen then became interested in Blackcomb and Hugh had to make what he described as “a critical decision in [his] career,” whether to continue with Paul and Ken or stick with his employer. Like at Fortress in 1975, he decided to stay with Aspen.

Skiers head up on Blackcomb’s opening day, December 4, 1980. Greg Griffith Collection

In 1978, 20th Century Fox used the profits from Star Wars to diversify and bought Aspen. Also in 1978, the province chose the bid from Aspen and development began on Blackcomb Mountain, meaning Hugh returned to Whistler as competition for his previous employer, Garibaldi Lifts. The opening of Blackcomb Mountain on December 4, 1980 was part of an era of huge change and development in Whistler when, with the construction of the Whistler Village, Whistler began to look more like the resort you see today. It is possible, however, that Whistler would be quite different if Dave, Lynn and Hugh hadn’t decided to reopen a “derelict ski area” in Alberta back in 1974.

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