Mountain Washrooms: BlackcombMountain Washrooms: Blackcomb
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 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.
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.
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.
