Whistler Bike Park: Dual Diligence - Park Report
Can you think of anyone you know who intentionally sabotages their own workplace half of the year? Well, I can. Take my Trail Crew Supervisor Pat Labrosse for instance. Pat works six months of the year as a Snowmaking Supervisor, diligently turning millions of gallons of reservoir water into a thick blanket of snow for the skiing masses to enjoy. In the world of ski area operations, the white line rules all. No one buys a lift ticket with the intent of downloading on the chair at the end of the day (even in May). Even if everyone did intend to ride the lift back down, the capacity for downloading couldn’t possibly meet the demand, hence the painful lineup to go home at the top of the commuter lifts in early/late season. This is where the Guns and Hoses gang come to save the day, zipping around the mountain powering up and down the fleet of snowmaking machines as they chase the freezing level up and down the hills, birthing the white whales the groomers will connect together to lock in our ski outs.
In order to ensure we have this highway from the alpine until the ski crowds dissipate sometime after Easter, Pat and his band produce ample product. The problem, I’m sure you can now see, is snow guns don’t discriminate on what they cover and will happily belch out snow-road building schmoo all over everything if given the chance. Add Mother Nature’s flakes and a long cold winter and we have ourselves some chest deep, compacted snowcrete to remove if we want to see the bike trails that went into hibernation last October. Pat is one of the first guys to start up the Bike Park for the season and he literally hangs up his snowmaking toque and replaces it with his Trail Crew hat the next week. Pat goes from building the white line to removing it a week later. Fortunately for all of us, Pat (who is a big intimidating guy) has a great sense of humor and appreciates the irony of his careers.
Pat and the boys have been in for a couple of weeks now and the report is that despite a large volume of snow, the uncapping of trails is moving along nicely. We are throwing all of our resources at the task with an unprecedented four excavators digging out the freeride trails and a team working its way around the single track labyrinth assessing which ones will yield to the shovel and which ones need a few more days/weeks to turn isothermal. It is early to say which trails will be ready for the opening but I am confident we will have more open on May 19th than we do right now. There will likely be some snow walls on the sides of some trails, (especially where they are near snowmaking pipelines) but that just adds to the opening week vibe.
![May 5 2017]()
Photo by: Pat Labrosse
We will be hosting a public dig day on Saturday, May 13th for anyone who wants to come out and pitch in to get the trails cleared for the opening. We have not done this since 2011, the last time Spring lost its passport and got stuck at the border. If that is something you might like to participate in please see more on the Facebook event page. Only fourteen more sleeps (at the time of writing) and we will be back at it. Thanks again to Pat and his teams for always being one step ahead of us so we have a smooth ride, no matter what season it is.
See you in fourteen…
– Brian Finestone, Bike Park Manager
Planning on Riding More Than Five Days This Season?
Now is the best time to buy your ticket to a sleepless summer, with Early Bird rates and bonus offers on until May 21. A 5 Day Pass is $269, which works out to just $54 a day. If you want to ride more than that, we have 10 Day, Unlimited and other passes that will keep you rolling.
Get Your Pass Here.
#RideNowSleepLater![WMBP 2017]()
In order to ensure we have this highway from the alpine until the ski crowds dissipate sometime after Easter, Pat and his band produce ample product. The problem, I’m sure you can now see, is snow guns don’t discriminate on what they cover and will happily belch out snow-road building schmoo all over everything if given the chance. Add Mother Nature’s flakes and a long cold winter and we have ourselves some chest deep, compacted snowcrete to remove if we want to see the bike trails that went into hibernation last October. Pat is one of the first guys to start up the Bike Park for the season and he literally hangs up his snowmaking toque and replaces it with his Trail Crew hat the next week. Pat goes from building the white line to removing it a week later. Fortunately for all of us, Pat (who is a big intimidating guy) has a great sense of humor and appreciates the irony of his careers.
Pat and the boys have been in for a couple of weeks now and the report is that despite a large volume of snow, the uncapping of trails is moving along nicely. We are throwing all of our resources at the task with an unprecedented four excavators digging out the freeride trails and a team working its way around the single track labyrinth assessing which ones will yield to the shovel and which ones need a few more days/weeks to turn isothermal. It is early to say which trails will be ready for the opening but I am confident we will have more open on May 19th than we do right now. There will likely be some snow walls on the sides of some trails, (especially where they are near snowmaking pipelines) but that just adds to the opening week vibe.
We will be hosting a public dig day on Saturday, May 13th for anyone who wants to come out and pitch in to get the trails cleared for the opening. We have not done this since 2011, the last time Spring lost its passport and got stuck at the border. If that is something you might like to participate in please see more on the Facebook event page. Only fourteen more sleeps (at the time of writing) and we will be back at it. Thanks again to Pat and his teams for always being one step ahead of us so we have a smooth ride, no matter what season it is.
See you in fourteen…
– Brian Finestone, Bike Park Manager
Planning on Riding More Than Five Days This Season?
Now is the best time to buy your ticket to a sleepless summer, with Early Bird rates and bonus offers on until May 21. A 5 Day Pass is $269, which works out to just $54 a day. If you want to ride more than that, we have 10 Day, Unlimited and other passes that will keep you rolling.
Get Your Pass Here.
#RideNowSleepLater
Author Info:
Must Read This Week
Sign Up for the Pinkbike Newsletter - All the Biggest, Most Interesting Stories in your Inbox
PB Newsletter Signup
Todtnau costs you 40 euros ten rides. Lenzerheide 44 swiss franks for 3 medium nice trails/day.. that's expensive. Of course portes du soleil is around 27 euros a day which is supernice for one of the biggest bike areas in the world.
But still, when they understand to shape trails here in europe like in whistler, I am willing to pay more.
Thx for the reply ???? I know i am there every year... it is one of my favourites in europe ???? live just 3 h away
The idea of a bike park doesn't interest me in the slightest!... I've never paid to ride a trail anywhere and I have no intention of ever paying to ride my bike... I guess I'm lucky that there are tons of free open trails where I live so I just go out and ride.
I've also never taken a lift to the top of a mountain, either, that's for fat wannabees... If you don't ride to the top you don't deserve the pleasure of barrelling down to the bottom!
I too rarely pay to get to the top of the hill but sometimes it's fantastic and a great way to get your groove on.
And that only runs for 2 weeks of the year.
The Epic pass works for both one summer and one winter, so the only other thing you need to do is buy a bike haul - I don't know anywhere that is more wallet friendly for locals, tbh. I'm not going to pretend like Vail cares for its locals, because the bottom line is just that - the bottom line. But for instance, my home hill is over $1k for a single 4-lift mountain, Aspen is more expensive for only 3 mountains, Jackson is even more expensive. Oh, and none of these other places offer merchant passes that make getting on the hill easier for the people who live in the area but don't work for the mountain itself.
And for you to imply that Whistler was some Ma & Pa operation, or somehow not insanely expensive before Vail bought it is ignorant.
And there you can hit only 4 tracks....
And yes it is possible, Revelstoke is a world class resort and they managed that without selling out to massive corporations who put profit before biking/skiing
That said, you didn't mention specific light prices , but you did mention "discounts and perks" so we are in the same ballpark.
@stacykohut: