Whistler Blackcomb (WB) is investigating an on-mountain accident last week that injured a Ski School instructor.
On Friday, Feb. 7, WB confirmed a 38-year-old coach was seriously injured on the job Jan. 28 while skiing in an alpine zone on a double-black diamond run.
“The entire Whistler Blackcomb team sends our sympathy and support to a member of our team who was seriously injured while skiing on the job,” said Belinda Trembath, Whistler Blackcomb’s COO, in a statement. “We are truly like family here at Whistler Blackcomb, and we are heartbroken that this incident occurred. The safety of our guests and employees is the most important thing to us, and we are conducting a comprehensive investigation of the incident.”
As a result, WB said it has restricted sliding in double-black terrain for certain types of Ski School lessons and instructor groups for the time being.
In a Jan. 31 internal staff email shared with Pique, a Ski School supervisor said the team is “reeling” from the accident, and that the Ski School “as a whole is looking into practices and terrain to hopefully avoid something similar happening to another one of our team.”
Trembath addressed the topic of mountain safety in a pre-ski season interview with Pique in November, wanting to “reassure locals we’re continuing to work very closely with our mountain safety team to provide a safe experience on mountain.”
On the Whistler side, crews made offseason improvements around Olympic station “to improve the experience for first-timers mid-mountain,” Trembath said at the time.
From changes designed to create better access to the Catskinner loading area on Blackcomb for “first-timers skiing the Easy Out trail” to connecting the top of the Excelerator quad to a new Catskinner Express trail, Trembath said mountain safety staff were “really innovative this summer in thinking about how skiers circulate” on Blackcomb. “It was particularly looking after those first-timers and low to intermediate skiers that want to avoid mixing with folks coming out of our signature terrain park area.”
That circulation has been hampered since Jan. 19, when Blackcomb Mountain’s Glacier Express chair went down due to a damaged gear box. In a Feb. 7 social media post, WB said lift maintenance crews have repaired the issue and the lift will begin running intermittently Saturday, Feb 8 as the gear box is tested and any final adjustments are made.
