Last Monday, April 17, I woke up to new snow on the ground and fairly clear skies. I checked the Whistler Peak site and there was almost 30 centimetres of new snow in the last 24 hours. I was super pumped to have a great pow day. I texted my bud in Revy bragging about the new snow, rubbing it in since Revy just closed.
All good, I parked and started walking to the Excalibur Gondola and very quickly my excitement turned to disappointment. Usually, after Whistler closes, you can walk right onto the Blackcomb lifts, but this was not the case on Monday. At first glimpse, I could see there were a lot of people in line, and as I kept walking I could see the line kept going and going. I decided to see if I could find the end of it, and it was at Lululemon, but going in the opposite direction from the gondola.
At that point, I couldn’t see the end, and gave up and went to The Lift for a latte. Many disappointed people were there, and a friend advised me that the Blackcomb Gondola, along with the Glacier chair, were now closed for the season—even though the season isn’t over. (Editor’s note: Blackcomb Gondola is operating on weekends only; Glacier Express was closed on Monday, April 17, but running the next day).
In more than 55 years of skiing in Whistler, I don’t think I have ever been so disappointed and frustrated about going skiing. It shouldn’t be this way. Skiing is supposed to be fun and worry-free, not frustrating. This lineup was as long as some of the lines in the ’70s and ’80s when the only way up was in the tin can, but back then tickets were a fraction of what they are today. Skiing is supposed to improve with the new lifts and equipment they have today, not get worse.
I don’t know what a skier or rider who lives in a ski town is supposed to do when you can’t even get up your local mountain in a reasonable amount of time; it makes no sense. Blackcomb has an almost new gondola just sitting there unused that would eliminate this issue. What are we paying for these days? Since Day 1, many of us skiers living in Whistler and the Lower Mainland have been skiing in Whistler until the end of the May long weekend, nothing new. We are paying customers, too, and deserve and expect to have a better quality of service even once the other Epic ski resort customers are gone. That’s what we paid for. Before Vail Resorts took over, the services and operations were never cut back to this level at this time of year.
Is Vail Resorts engaging in false advertising? You can’t say you have so many lifts and hundreds of runs if the lifts are not running or runs are not being maintained or groomed. Vail should advise customers that it only operates lifts and maintains and grooms runs and opens restaurants according to how much profit the company wants to take back to its American CEO and shareholders, like a letter writer who advised us in an earlier issue of Pique that skiers and riders need to stop whining and invest in Vail (“Letter: Vail Resorts hate is getting boring,” Pique, Feb. 27). Seems funny that someone living in Whistler would rather see profit from a stock than enjoy the incredible mountains we have. There are thousands of companies to invest in. Vail Resorts would be the last one I would invest in, just for how it treats its customers. Vail Resorts makes our cellphone companies look like angels.
Something needs to be done. I don’t know what the answer is. A Skier’s Bill of Rights? A lawsuit, as this is the American way? But Vail Resorts probably has more lawyers on staff than ski people. That letter writer is right about one thing: complaining doesn’t do any good. If my company was being slagged constantly, I would at least have someone from the company address customers’ concerns and try to make improvements. Remaining silent is deafening, and inaction is worse.
I can see why many people have moved out of Whistler to other ski towns owned by independents or Canadian companies. I have considered this too, but I’m too rooted in this town. As mentioned before, I sure hope Vail Resorts and the Alterra Mountain Company, owner of the Ikon Pass, don’t buy all our ski resorts. That will be the end of skiing as we know it.
