On the topic of mountain safety: Braden Dupuis’ editorial, Bryce Leigh’s letter to the editor and a full-page column by Max, all in two issues, let alone last season’s similar articles. Hmm, just how common is this issue? Sadly, all too common, and I won’t repeat the valid points made in recent issues of Pique. Increasingly we all take chances skiing here. Yes, greater upload capacity and an ever-shrinking ski area (yet the acres advertised remain the same) combined with natural choke points on both mountains has led us to this issue.
Too many experienced skiers/boarders have lost their civil code and simply care about their experience and no one else, too often scaring new skiers out of their wits. Though I would love it if all skiers knew and acted upon the code, that seems to be an anachronism of the ’60s/’70s (“fill in your sitzmark!” i.e.: a snow divot from falling).
In the last two years, my wife has been hit three times by out-of-control snowboarders, two rather dramatic (one on a backboard out to the clinic) to the point she fears skiing here. Only one admitted to their error. She is not alone in this fear.
One of the worst choke points that can be corrected is the last part of the S turn on lower Dave descending to the Timing Flats (by the green Olympic rings). Everyone funnels through a very narrow point yet, slightly to the north, is the run used in the Olympics yet never open. The cost to provide two routes must be so low, but nothing is done. Typical, from what I see; the place is run by absent accountants somewhere far, far away.
I have skied here since opening year, was a volunteer First Aid Ski Patroller for three years, have owned a Creekside condo since 2003 and wintered here full time since 2014 yet, like so many others, our exodus is at hand. Many left due to the high cost of being here, others from a dislike of Vail Corp., and ours, at the end of this season, due to safety issues.
The upside of all this is that other B.C. ski resorts are the lucky recipients of such an exodus. Red Mountain, Silver Star, Big White and yes, Sun Peaks, where we are moving to. It’s been good for Nancy Greene Raine for decades, so we know it will be the same for us. All so sad, but the current reality of Whistler Blackcomb.
