We received a great response for our recent post about Whistler-Blackcomb ski run names, so we figured we would post a few more. Last time we were pretty Blackcomb-heavy, so this week we’ll weight things more towards Whistler.
Whistler
Franz’s Run – Franz Wilhelmsen, from Norway, was one of the founders of Garbaldi Lifts Ltd and remained the president of the company for 20 years.
Bagel Bowl – Preferred piste of former Whistler Mountain President, Lorne Borgal, affectionately known as the ‘Lone Bagel’.
Franz Wilhelmsen and Lorne Borgal (the Lone Bagel!) at the Franz’s Run dedication ceremony in 1983.
Chunky’s Choice – Named after Chunky Woodward, he was another one of the founding directors of Garibaldi Lifts Ltd. It was his favourite run.
Jolly Green Giant – Named after Vancouver and Whistler resident Casey Niewerth. He was over six feet tall and dressed all in green so he was easily recognized on the hill as “the Jolly Green Giant” named after the canned vegetables brand.
Jam Tart – Named after cat driver John Cleland who was tragically killed in Whistler Bowl while recovering avalanche duds – Jam Tart was Cleland’s nickname.
Pony Trail – At one point during the construction of lifts on Whistler Mountain, fire hazard forced workers to use packhorses to transport supplies up the mountain. The road they used became a ski run, so it kept the name.
Tokum – Named after Tokum Corners – a ‘skibum’ house lived in by John Hetherington, George Benjamin and others. Tokum was the run they took home at the end of the day. We’ll let you figure out how Tokum Corners got its name.
George “Benji” Benjamin outside Tokum Corners, 1970s.
Cockalorum – Named for mechanic Jack Goodale, who died in an accident in 1981. Cockalorum means a small person with a large presence.
Boomer Bowl – Apparently, windows in Alpine Meadows rattle when this bowl gets bombed for avalanche control.
Burnt Stew Trail – In the summer of 1958 Florence Peterson, Kelly Fairhurst and Don Gow were on a back-packing trip around Whistler Mountain. After setting up camp one evening they started cooking dinner in an old billy can over a fire, built into the rocks of a dry creek bed. Nobody remembered to stir the pot, resulting in the smell after which the area (Burnt Stew Basin), and ski run are named after.
Kelly Fairhurst and Florence Petersen during their 1958 Burnt Stew hike.
Blackcomb
Arthur’s Choice – Named for Mountain Planning and Environmental Resource Manager Arthur DeJong in 1994. Designed to bring a new dimension to glade skiing.
Xhiggy’s Meadow – Named after Peter Xhignesse, an original ski patroller on Blackcomb Mountain who died of cancer at 32.
There are literally hundreds of more run names, both on and off the trail map, so if you are curious about any specific names leave a comment or e-mail us your questions!
A Whistler Mountain trail map from the simpler days
It is with some trepidation that I write this post, as place names are notorious for having multiple people claiming that they named them. Speaking to the archivist at the BC Geographic Names Index she tells me with a laugh how she’s lost count of the number of times that people have claimed that their ancestor named this or that mountain, only to discover that the mountain was named before their ancestor was born!
I’m sure Whistler Blackcomb’s ski runs will be no exception to this rule, so if you disagree to any of the descriptions to follow, feel free to correct us by commenting below – we are always looking for new information at the Whistler Museum.
So here goes, I roll up my sleeves and give you a brief guide to Whistler Blackcomb’s ski run names. Of course, there are many, many more runs than I can include in one blog post, but here are a selection that caught my attention:
Whistler
Jimmy’s Joker
Not named after Jim McConkey, as I had assumed. Apparently one of the surveyors, named Jimmy, got lost in the fog and marked out a trail that turned out to be very different than he had expected.
McConkey’s
Is named after Jim McConkey! ‘Diamond Jim’ took over management of Whistler Mountain Ski School in 1968.
Pig Alley
A short cut from Whiskey Jack to Ego Bowl. Named after ski patrol’s first skidoo, -a pig of a machine that always got stuck. The patrol had the trail cut because it was easier to cross over to Ego Bowl and climb that with the skidoo than to climb Whiskey Jack.
‘Diamond’ Jim McConkey, the eponymous hero of McConkey’s but NOT Jimmy’s Joker
Blackcomb
Once slated for logging, many Blackcomb runs have logging themes to them:
Jersey Cream: Extra good timber; cream of the crop
Stoker: A person employed to fuel the steam engines used to pull the logs.
Hooker: A foreman of a logging “side”. The yarding crew had 8-10 men. (So, in answer to the title question, ‘Hooker’ is in fact a logging term, not a ‘lady of the night’.)
Cruiser: A logger who surveys standing timber for volume.
Catskinner: A tractor driver.
The Bite: an area in the curve or slack of a cable. When the cable pulls a log, the slack snaps out causing this area to be very dangerous.
Couger Milk: A term referring to the grease used on logging equipment.
Crosscut: Means to cut across like “crosscut saw”.
Skid Row: A rod on which logs were dragged by bulls. Later horses, then logging skidders.
Springboard: A board that a hand fallers stood on above the broad base when falling a large tree.
Choker: A short length of wire rope used to wrap around the log to be yarded to the landing.
Gearjammer: A nickname given to a heavy equipment operator.
7th Heaven
Blackcomb president Hugh Smythe named the area after he figured out that the lift servicing it was Blackcomb’s 7th lift.
Ladies First
I got this little gem from the Guide to Whistler Blackcomb. Ladies First on Blackcomb Glacier was named after Whistler Patroller Cathy Jewett who was first to (sort of) ski the line in 1984. Jewett dropped in and instantly set off an avalanche that she rode down the slope until she managed to self-arrest. So, although she was theoretically “first”, she didn’t really ski it that day!
Bushrat
A technical chute off of Chainsaw Ridge, Bushrat was named after Museum President John Hetherington who was working on Ski patrol at the time. Ken Newington, Blackcomb’s first Ski Patrol director named this run after John soon after the area opened.
That’s all for now, but if you liked this post, let us know and we’ll do some more!
As our calendars flip from May to June we also bid adieu to winter operations on Blackcomb Mountain, which finished May 30th. For many of us, the annual end of lift service is the death knell of our already-waning ski ambitions. This being Whistler, however, others choose to send winter off in style! Over the past 15 years, what began as the frivolous antics of a few winter zealots has grown into a veritable Whistler institution. I’m talking about Gaper Day of course.
Jamie rallying the gapers
In typical Whistler fashion, anything goes, but the gist of the event is as follows: on the last day of winter ski operations dress up in the most ridiculous outfit you can muster, get to skier’s plaza before noon for the Gaper Day pep rally, then head up the mountain and celebrate the close of another glorious winter by unleashing every last drop of giddy, childish antics still remaining from the previous six months of pure powder pleasure.
Extra points if your skis are part of the joke. Older skis also come in handy since, in an ode to the changing seasons, Gapers are expected to ride as much as possible off the snow—dirt, rocks, trees, ponds, even concrete stairs invariably enter the mix.
I recently caught up with long-time local and Gaper Day mastermind Jamie Bond to talk about the wildly popular season-ender bender.
Whistler Museum: So how did it all begin?
Jamie Bond: Good question. Our first Gaper Day began when we took a year off to ski-bum in Europe in 1996. There were lots of drunk Swedish people partying and skiing and we decided we should bring this together into something fun, so at the end of the season everybody got together, dressed up in jeans and tight shirts and whatever else and pretty much got silly and kept it real all day. That became “Ski in Jeans Day,” which lasted about five or six years until we realized that “Ski in Jeans Day” was just far too limiting for people’s ski creativity, so then it became “Gaper Day” and now you can do whatever the hell you want.
WM: Who came up with the name “Gaper Day”?
JB: I don’t know. I think it was just, what else could you really call it? The whole day is about just making fun of skiing, so why not dress up like a “gorbie” or a “gaper.” “Gaper Day” just flows off the tongue so it just kinda stuck. Year after year we noticed that Gaper Day is all over North America now. I don’t know if it all stems from the Whistler Gaper Day or it’s just a crazy coincidence of awesomeness, but it’s pretty exciting to see.
“Bring out the cough medicine cause it’s gonna be sick!”
WM: Considering Whistler’s long-standing reputation for being at the forefront of skiing culture, would you say that Gaper Day is the most influential and progressive thing to ever come from here? JB: Well, it’s certainly changed my life (laughter), and it certainly progresses progression, if you know what I mean (more laughter). But it is pretty funny seeing all those world cup ski racers and world champion big-mountain freeskiers who are out doing all that other influential stuff that Whistler is known for. A heck of a lot of them show up for Gaper Day every year. Who knows where they get their inspiration from but we can’t help but think that a little piece of Gaper Day, you know, they take it with them every year. WM: How has it changed over the years? You said it started out just jeans and t-shirts… JB: Yeah. It just gets bigger every year. It started out as a group of buddies skiing in t-shirts and jeans and you see groups like that on any given weekend these days. But it seems like for sure the biggest gathering of Gapers is on the last day of Blackcomb’s season. I’d say in the last couple of years the biggest change is that now it’s just a phenomenon. You don’t need a Facebook group or you don’t need to phone a bunch of friends and rally them up and force them to come out for Gaper Day. It just happens. So I think our life quest is complete because now Gaper Day will continue forever onwards. WM: It’s taken on a life of it’s own. JB: Yeah.
The 2011 Gapers
WM: So what’s next for Gaper Day? Where do you see it going, then?
JB: Good question. We were going to do the Gaper Olympics last year, but organized sport is way too, you know, confined for the creative expression of a typical gaper (laughter). So we’re just going to have to get more and more people. This year or next year we might introduce “Silly-goating” champions, whereby there would be a points system kind of like a Shane McConkey-inspired game of “GNAR,” like down there in Squaw Valley. We’re thinking of using a similar scoring system, and we’ll see if we can crown some silly-goating world champions over the next few years.
WM: See how quickly you can get banned from the mountain?
JB: Exactly, yeah! (laughter). It’s quite suspicious that they extended the season this year so that it ends on a random Monday, which is an American long weekend. Boy would it have been rowdy if it ended last Monday for the Canadian long weekend. Gaper Day would have been off the hook… It could be some higher power trying to curb Gaper Day. I’m pretty sure that Whistler-Blackcomb is cool enough to appreciate all that is “gaper,” so that probably wasn’t the real reason.
WM: Has the mountain ever given you a hard time, or patrol?
JB: Not really. They’re pretty good about it. There’s never been any point in endorsing it because it’s kind of a (laughter), uh, rabble-rousing day. I think they’ve been supportive of it. They just ask from now on that all gapers obey the “leave no trace” policy because now there’s patrollers stuck cleaning up after us. So why not just keep it real and pack you junk out with you at the end of the day?
WM: Fair enough. What are stand out moments or antics from over the years?
JB: Oh yeah, there’s been a few. I’d say the first few seasons of skiing out to the valley with about 2,000 feet of dirt and grass are probably some highlights, and now it’s an annual classic at the end of the day. The uber-hush hush water skiing behind Crystal Chair is definitely a Gaper Day legend.
WM: Last year’s 360 was pretty big.
JB: Yeah, Sheldon Steckman’s pond-skim 360 was caught on film from many angles last year. There’s been broken skis. There’s been concussions. Some good rappelling action. Spelunking. More than a few people up to their necks in ponds. You know, people progressing progression, taking the sport to places it was never meant to be. All sorts of quality action.
WM: What do you think it is about retro ski outfits that pretty much everyone loves them in every ski town, to the point where you see them every weekend on the hill now?
JB: I don’t know. I think it goes back to a time when skiing was a little bit more fun and a little bit goofier. Everything’s pretty serious these days. Even the freeskiing events that were meant to be by definition “free” skiing, are now organized Olympic sports, that sort of thing. I think everyone appreciates a little bit of good old-fashioned ski fun. And what better way than to dress up stupid like they did in the past, and keep it real. Plus, a tight one-piece on a chick is highly flattering.
WM: Not so much dudes?
JB: Uhhh, it depends on the day I guess, and the angle.
WM: Do you have any last words, any inspirational quotes or anything like that that you want to add?
JB: Well, one frequent Gaper Day dude, Jon Burr, often says “Bring out the cough medicine cause it’s gonna be sick!” I think that’s a pretty good warning for everyone for this Gaper Day and Gaper Days to come.
WM: Awesome, I think those are pretty wise words to end it on.
For more stories, images, and videos of Gaper Days past, present, and future, check out Doglotion.com
