Tag: Skiing

Unforgettable Whistler Mountain Staff PartiesUnforgettable Whistler Mountain Staff Parties

April 18, 2023 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 2 Comments

When I think of Whistler Blackcomb staff parties, I think of Mickey Mouse’s Christmas Album and walking around the Conference Centre collecting little trolls from the Christmas crackers. It was shocking to my 6-year-old brain that some of the adults did not want the trolls, and they travelled across the world with me when my family moved to Australia. Mickey’s Christmas album also came with us and it still comes on in December every year, much to my father’s dismay.

While it is hard to believe, some of Whistler Mountain’s other staff parties sound even better. The 1986 year-end staff party will go down in the history books.

At the end of the 1985/86 winter, Canada was coming out of the recession that had gripped the country throughout the early 1980s. Peak Chair had not yet been constructed but was going in over the summer and the competition between Whistler Mountain and Blackcomb Mountain was still in full swing.

After Whistler Mountain closed to the public for the end of the 1985/86 season, the lifts turned on again for a staff celebration. Ullr was happy and it had dumped with snow overnight so the celebrating staff got fresh snow all to themselves.

To get all the staff onto the mountain for the celebration, the gondola from Creekside ran for a few hours in the morning then closed once everyone was up. For the rest of the day, the Whistler T-bar and Red Chair were running unmanned allowing everyone to join the party. With absolutely no liftys, staff could ski down and hop straight onto the lift however they pleased.

Like the majority of Whistler Mountain parties back then it was a fully catered event. Booze and food were plentiful, with management flipping burgers and Pika’s overflowing with unlimited free drinks for all. Looking at photos from the event, the outfits scream 1980s spring skiing – Vaurnets all around, bright colours and spectacular goggle tans. With many people dressed up in costume it is unclear whether there was a theme or the costumes were just out to celebrate the end of the season.

L to R – Andrea Thompson, Scott Paxton and Erin Early in front of the Roundhouse during the 1986 Whistler Mountain staff party. Photo courtesy of Dave Steers.

Remembering the festivities, Janet Love Morrison recalled, “there was all this booze and so you’d have a couple of drinks and then you just ski down to Little Red, load yourself up with no liftys. It was pretty crazy.” Despite this, there were no serious incidents during the raucous party.

Whistler Mountain had a reputation for excellent staff parties, so much so that locals who did not work for Whistler Mountain paid for a helicopter to Whistler Peak so they could join the revelry!

Now living on the Sunshine Coast, photographer and longtime employee of Whistler Mountain, Dave Steers, remembered another side of the event. “The skiing was amazing and it was the last time ever that you could lap the Peak and lay down tracks beside your last set.” Before the chairlift went in only a small number of people hiked the Peak so you could always get fresh tracks. Once the ‘weak chair’ to the Peak was built far more people began accessing the terrain.

For more about ski culture in the 1980s, visit Peak Bros: A Whistler Comic Strip 1979 – 1992 at the Whistler Museum until April 23rd, 2023.

Whistler Peak before the Peak Chair went in over the summer of 1986. Photo courtesy of Dave Steers.

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The first decade of grooming on Whistler MountainThe first decade of grooming on Whistler Mountain

March 21, 2023 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 2 Comments

Today Whistler Blackcomb has a fleet of 30 snow cats grooming the resort each night. This is a far cry from the limited grooming that occurred when Whistler Mountain opened in 1966.

Those lucky enough to have skied on Whistler Mountain in the 1960s may remember moguls the size of Volkswagens and ski runs covered in felled trees. Whistler Mountain had a single Thiokol and a bulldozer to maintain the ski runs in the early years. The Thiokol was essentially a van on tracks, which was useful for knocking the air out of powder and breaking up ice crusts, but it could not do anything about icy moguls. These machines could turn ice crust into sugary snow at the rate of half a run per night, so it took two days to groom one run.

Watching cornice blasting from the Thiokol groomer in 1968. At this time the Thiokol was one half of the grooming fleet on Whistler Mountain. Photo courtesy of Cliff Jennings.

Cliff Jennings spent two winters working as a groomer on Whistler Mountain when there were only the two machines. He remembers track packing the steep section of the downhill course known as the Weasel. (Track packing involves grooming the run by packing the snow down using only the bulldozer tracks.) “You would go over the edge and the snow was coming over the cab. You put your feet almost on the dash and put it into fourth gear so that the tracks were traveling as fast as you were otherwise you could lose the track. When the snow stopped coming over the top you knew you were on the road below midstation and you’d go back up around again.” Skiers’ side-slipping would then smooth the finish for race days.

Fixing a broken track on the John Deere bulldozer in 1967. Photo courtesy of Cliff Jennings.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the method of flying blindly down the hill in a bulldozer did not continue as the permanent method for grooming the Weasel, and volunteer Weasel Workers began grooming the slope entirely by ski.

The fleet of groomers grew over time and in 1975 the Fall edition of Garibaldi’s Whistler News included an article on the grooming on Whistler Mountain. ‘At Whistler we use over-snow vehicles called Thiokols, towing various pieces of machinery to literally farm the snow, just as a farmer cultivates his field. At Whistler we have four Thiokol 2100’s. The equipment they tow consists of four rollers, two mogul cutters, a powder maker (with another also on order for this winter) and a harrow.’

The article goes on to say, ‘The eight Thiokol operators work in two shifts to provide maximum coverage of the runs. The day shift starts up the Gondola run at 5:00 a.m. in the morning and begins grooming at midstation. Here they evaluate the snow conditions and decide what equipment to tow. Mogul cutters and powder makers and the harrow, if the snow is hard and heavily moguled, or if it is a typical deep powder day, rollers to make that fine packed powder skiing we all enjoy so much.’

A Thiokol grooming Whistler Mountain in 1974. Benjamin Collection.

Even with the improved technology most of the runs remained ungroomed and the machine tracks themselves would leave chunks of snow and ice along the runs. The corduroy that we know and love today would not come along until later.

Above: A groomer on Whistler Blackcomb in 2022. The machines grooming the mountain have changed slightly since 1966. Photo by Christie Fitzpatrick, courtesy of Vail Resorts.

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Before Personal Locator Beacons and Cell Phones: SPOT the DifferenceBefore Personal Locator Beacons and Cell Phones: SPOT the Difference

January 3, 2023 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

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.

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Dining on the Mile High MountainDining on the Mile High Mountain

December 20, 2022 Whistler MuseumWhistler Museum 0 Comments

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 hospitality, making guests comfortable to encourage return visits. Before Merlin’s or Crystal or Glacier Lodge, you may remember dining at the cafeteria at Base 2, the original base of Blackcomb, or the Rendezvous Lodge.

The original daylodge on Blackcomb was located in the area now known as Base 2. Whistler Question Collection.

The Parsons family were the first concessionaires on Blackcomb, opening these venues with the opening of the new mountain. Chris Leighton (née Parsons), her brother Steve, and their mum Lee were the brains and brawn behind the impressive operation. The Parsons family had the food business in their blood. In 1929, Chris’ grandfather had opened Jimmy’s Lunch at the PNE, which is still run by the family to this day. Christine’s father, Bob Parsons, also had a food stall that travelled the carnival circuit every year from May to October. He would be on the road all summer, then could spend the winter in the mountains, skiing with family and volunteering with Whistler Mountain Ski Club. Sadly Bob passed away in 1979, one year before his family opened the food services on Blackcomb.

The top of Blackcomb looked a little different when Rendezvous Lodge first opened. Whistler Question Collection.

When the cafeteria and Rendezvous opened, the cafeteria had a large preparation space and much of the food was made at the base and then transported up the mountain either by snowcat or by foot based on the amount of snow at the base. Unfortunately for Blackcomb, the first year of operation was a terrible snow year. There were three lifts to get up the mountain and they did not line up exactly, so food and supplies had to be skied from one lift to the next until they reached the snowcat. Inevitably, food would spill along the way.

Blackcomb hospitality staff. Blackcomb Mountain Collection.

Once there was enough snow, success was still not a given. Visitor numbers would come in at 11 am and when there was not a single guest on the mountain they closed for the day.

According to Chris, the direction from Aspen Ski Company and Hugh Smythe were, “’We don’t want to be like Whistler. We want to be better.’ Hugh would come through everyday and make sure the music wasn’t too loud and that it was expected that we were going to be bigger and better.”

Customer service training for Blackcomb staff. Whistler Question Collection.

When Blackcomb opened there were caretakers that lived at the top who were responsible for starting the doughnuts and fresh baking so wonderful smells welcomed the guests. The caretakers also put soups and chilli on to heat because regular staff could only upload 30 minutes before the mountain opened to the public.

While it is common to find vegetarian options on most menus today, in the 1980s it was quite unusual to have the choice of vegetarian or beef chilli which Blackcomb offered. Food was served on real crockery with real cutlery. They even flew a ‘fry guy’ over from England to train everyone in how to make french fries from scratch using a chipper.

Blackcomb food service staff, May 1983. Whistler Question Collection.

The food up Blackcomb during the Parsons’ reign is still raved about today. They went on to open Christine’s Restaurant, fine dining on top of the mountain named after Chris herself (much to her chagrin; Chris thought Wildflower or Lupin were better names but Hugh Smythe was adamant). Horstman Hut, Crystal Hut and Merlin’s were also opened during their time as concessionaires. After 10 years, and growing the staff from a daily requirement of around 10 to 100, the Parsons decided it was time for the next adventure and Blackcomb took over.

Some local faces enjoying Christine’s in the 1980s. Blackcomb Mountain Collection.
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