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Our little bit of heaven...

I don't enjoy writing about "serious" topics. That's why I'm a columnist, not a journalist. Serious topics make my head hurt. They require facts and getting to the bottom of facts just slows down the process.
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Playing for money However dim, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Photo submitted

I don't enjoy writing about "serious" topics. That's why I'm a columnist, not a journalist. Serious topics make my head hurt. They require facts and getting to the bottom of facts just slows down the process. And these days, I really don't enjoy reading anything about The End of the World As We Know It.

So I won't write about it.

Instead, I'll revisit a story dear to my heart. Right now, in any year but this one, we'd be enjoying spring skiing. There is a certain part of any sunny day when outstanding spring skiing is to be found on the south-facing slope of Blackcomb Mountain.

If you have a soft spot in your heart for the rock-strewn slopes and steep couloirs of 7th Heaven, thank the late Peter Xhignesse. Thank Hugh Smythe. Peter convinced Hugh to take a chance on the terrain. Hugh was open-minded enough to be convinced. He also purloined—stole is too harsh a word—a lift to get it opened.

This is a shortened version of how that played out. It's part of both our history and our mythology. It's purely for entertainment. We need entertainment now.

In the early '80s, Blackcomb had diddly for alpine skiing. "Boring," is how Hugh described it. But Aspen, which owned the mountain, wasn't interested in hearing about it.

Peter, a patroller, trainer, weatherperson and avalanche forecaster, understood the mountain's terrain better than probably anyone. He was fascinated with the expansive, south-facing slope that fell away towards Fitzsimmons Creek. He was convinced it was not only good, skiable terrain but an entree into the real alpine the mountain had to offer: Horstman Glacier and beyond. If it only had a lift.

In 1984-85, he convinced Rich Morton, vice president of operations, to hike out and look at it with him. Shortly thereafter, he brought the idea of developing it to Hugh. "Why would we build a lift on the south-facing slope, the windward side no less, of the mountain?" Hugh asked, having never thought of it himself. In all the early exploring and cat skiing, he'd never skied that aspect of the mountain. Intuitively, it didn't make sense.

In the best managers, there exists a vein of native empathy, an ability to understand and feel, at a gut level, what other people know but you don't. It allows them to cut subordinates loose to follow a wild-assed idea and succeed—or fail—fantastically.

Hugh earned his empathy the hard way, convincing, again Aspen, to let him build the first triple chairlift in Canada at Fortress Mountain when they owned it and he managed it. The powers that be weren't convinced triples would work. They had one at Snowmass and it was a disaster. But Hugh prevailed and he improvised and made it work. What he saw, and Aspen didn't, was the advent of the singles' line, the maze system and lots of fine-tuning. Voila! A triple chair operating at capacity without any empty chairs.

Perhaps remembering the success of that risk, Hugh bought into Peter's plan. But identifying new terrain was one thing. Building the infrastructure to open it, another.

Hugh remembered a T-bar he'd installed on Fortress, which by this point was barely operating. Believing he had approval from Aspen, he sent Rich over with a team to take it down and bring it back. "We didn't want anyone to know we were moving stuff off crown land in Alberta, so we got the lift down and out in a day and a half. It just disappeared. Sort of like one of those undercover stories," he explained, long after any statute of limitations had passed.

But putting it in wasn't so easy. What should have taken a month took almost three because Whistler had its coldest, toughest fall ever. Like -20°C cold.

And if that wasn't enough to overcome, Aspen's approval existed only in Hugh's head. They refused to fund the undertaking.

When faced with a weak hand, punters fold. Gamblers bluff. Hugh bluffed. He told Aspen he'd sell enough incremental season passes to pay for the lift. The bluff worked. With an advertising campaign promising the highest vertical drop in North America—the Mile High Mountain—enough new passes were sold.

When the lift was finally in, it was a game changer. From the top, you not only had all the now-familiar terrain known as 7th Heaven, you had the terrain off the other side: Horstman Glacier, and everything on either side of it, more even if you didn't mind a bit of a hike.

Following protocol, the T-Bar was Lift #7. But 7th Heaven was actually a run that ran through Horstman Glacier, skirting the bottom of Secret Bowl, around Cougar Chutes and into the top of Blowdown. The whole of the area—Horstman, Blackcomb Bowl and South Side—was collectively referred to as 7th Heaven.

Why 7th Heaven? Hugh explained. "In 1965, I'm 16 years old, riding up a double chair in a wet, wet snowstorm. Heavy big flakes are coming down like crazy at Stevens Pass in Washington. It's just puking. I'm bundled up, slouched down and miserable. I get to the top and the window opens to the operator's hut. A fellow, I can still see his face, full beard, twinkling eyes, sticks his head out and said, in a deep voice, 'Welcome to 7th Heaven.' I hadn't thought of it since then, but this was our seventh lift and out of my head pops 7th Heaven."

The rest, as they say, is ... well, you know.

Thank Hugh and, especially, thank Peter, for whom Xhiggy's Meadow is named. The efforts of all involved are in the best spirit of what got Whistler built and what makes it special. It's a spirit that still pervades the valley and it's the spirit that will see it rebound after this historic episode is behind us.

In the meantime, heartfelt thanks to everyone who is keeping this place going, the grocers, the medics, the pharmacists, muni workers, WCSS, everybody. Thanks to everyone who is taking care and coping with the two-metre tango. This too shall pass.

Thanks to everyone who has rallied to keep the food bank funded, to spend some money with local merchants who haven't been shuttered and special thanks to those who value Pique enough to have contributed to keep it afloat. It makes a difference. I don't know what the town would be like without Pique but I don't want to find out. It's unlikely anyone would be crazy enough in this digital age to ever start up another dead-tree publication.

However dim, there is light and this tunnel has an end. See you on the other side.