Canada will host next year’s Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, but the slopes of Whistler Blackcomb will remain accessible to the ski enthusiast who likes to do more than watch.
It’s a rare treat to be able to tie in a ski holiday at one of the world’s best mountain resorts with the excitement of the Olympics, but visitors to Whistler in western Canada will be able to do that in a few months. Far from sacrificing its slopes to the Games, Whistler is spreading the word that “over 90 per cent” of its famous ski field will be open for business as usual during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, which runs from February 12 to 28. The resort will open for skiing this season on November 26.
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Those who visit during the Games will be able to ski or board this popular international resort at a time when the atmosphere is supercharged with the excitement of one of the world’s ultimate sporting events. Such an array of free attractions is planned during the two-week period that you won’t even need a ticket to an Olympic event to feel part of the spectacle. Start planning now.
Whistler Blackcomb
Whistler Blackcomb, a spectacular two-hour drive north of Vancouver on the Sea to Sky Highway, is placing six Celebration Sites throughout its bustling pedestrian-only village for the Games. From morning to midnight, visitors will be able to watch free Games-related events and live performances by local and international acts. Skier’s Plaza, near the base of Whistler Mountain, promises to be the liveliest spot in the village. Here, giant screens will broadcast Olympic events as well as ceremonies, concerts and performances from other Celebration Sites in Whistler and Vancouver.
Whistler Medals Plaza (WMP) will be the main Celebration Site, where nightly medal ceremonies will be held along with live entertainment. With the Olympic Arts Festival running concurrently with the Games, it will be almost impossible not to stumble across free events featuring music, theatre, dance and film plus art exhibitions and street entertainment. The ice events, freestyle skiing and opening and closing ceremonies will be held in Vancouver, but otherwise the attention of the Winter Games world will be firmly on Whistler.
Holidaymakers must contend with only a few Games-related training closures of runs on Blackcomb Mountain and Whistler’s Creekside, which will be used for all the major skiing events: downhill, super G, giant slalom, slalom and super combined courses. Getting around won’t be a problem, though, as underpass tunnels have been built on the Creekside courses so the public can easily ski across the mountain even during competition. Run closures will be staggered from January 25 until March 27. Creekside Gondola will be closed during the Games, and a chairlift for spectators and officials has been built from the base to the main spectator area at Timing Flats. The gondola will also provide priority loading for athletes and officials during the Paralympic Winter Games (March 12-21).
Over on the main area, the Whistler Village Gondola and the Fitzsimmons Express, which access Whistler Mountain, and the Wizard Express and the Excalibur Gondola on Blackcomb Mountain, will be open to the public along with the surrounding slopes. Visitors staying at Creekside will have access to a 24-hour bus service running the short distance to Whistler Blackcomb from where they can get to the slopes.
Blackcomb Mountain is also home to the impressive new Whistler Sliding Centre, a 12,000-capacity venue with a 1450m refrigerated track that will host bobsleigh, skeleton and luge. Another completely new facility, Whistler Olympic Park – a short drive from the main resort – has been built to host ski jumping, cross-country skiing, the Nordic combined event and the biathlon. Its three stadiums will each house 12,000 spectators.
Vancouver
In West Vancouver, Cypress Mountain is the venue for the freestyle skiing events of moguls, aerials and ski cross, as well as snowboard halfpipe, parallel giant slalom and snowboard cross. Vancouver will also host ice hockey, figure skating and curling – and make Olympic history by holding the opening and closing ceremonies in the city’s BC Place Stadium, the first time they have taken place under cover at a summer or winter games.
Visitors can rest assured that the Sea to Sky Highway won’t be closed during the Olympics, but during the Games only people staying at Whistler Blackcomb whose accommodation includes parking – offered by most hotel and holiday rental properties – will be allowed to drive into the village. Otherwise, daytrippers who want to visit Whistler from Vancouver can take advantage of the Olympic Bus Network, which will offer a $C25 ($27) round trip to the ski resort, as all public car parks in the village will be closed. In fact, about the only place where (limited) public parking will be available during the Games is at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, the ice hockey venue.
The expanded bus service along the Sea to Sky Highway has undergone an upgrade in preparation for the Games. From February 1, it is planned that the Whistler region’s bus fleet will more than triple to reach all previously unserviced areas on the valley floor, ensuring 90 per cent of homes will be no more than a 10-minute walk from a bus stop.
Snow business
Snowmobiling, helicopter skiing, dog-sledding, snowshoeing and horsedrawn sleigh rides through the village or forest are among the many popular off-slope pursuits – all of which will be operating during the Olympics. At Lost Lake, just minutes from the central village, there are more than 30km of groomed trails for skate skiing and classic cross-country. There’s even 4km of trails floodlit until 9pm.
Whistler Heli-Skiing offers the luxury of being flown to the top of untracked slopes (with the services of a guide, of course), as well as on-mountain lunch and a professional video, which will be screened at the day’s end for the group at one of Whistler village’s most popular bars, Buffalo Bills. Packages start at $C935 ($1110).
For about $C215 ($232), a guide from the Whistler Alpine Guides Bureau can show you a real backcountry experience, even hiring out the equipment necessary to “earn your turns” – otherwise known as “ski touring” – hiking outside the ski area boundary to pristine fields far from the groomed runs. Groups can power through up to four runs a day, depending on ability, and clock up several kilometres of vertical while learning backcountry basics and avalanche awareness.
The Fresh Tracks program offers skiers and snowboarders a crack at Whistler Mountain before it opens to the public. This program is so popular that people queue well before sunrise for one of the 650 tickets issued each day. Those who secure early-bird tickets then upload on the Whistler Village Gondola between 7.30am and 8.30am to avail themselves of the generous breakfast buffet at Roundhouse Lodge at the gondola’s top station before hitting the slopes. Perhaps sit back and enjoy a Sno-Limo ride. The rickshaw-style set-up has you tucked up safely in a sled as a “chauffeur” eases you down the slopes past skiers and snowboarders.
Or take a flying-fox ride with Ziptrek Ecotours. The guided course crisscrosses scenic Fitzsimmons Creek and the valley between Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains. The three-hour tour includes an explanation of the valley’s flora. You start at the base of Whistler Mountain before being trucked to the actual course. Each “zip line” starts with a leap of faith off a treetop platform before flying high over the forest.
Paralympic Winter Games
From March 12-21, Whistler will host all events except sledge hockey and wheelchair curling (Vancouver). In Whistler Village, Skier’s Plaza at the mountain base and Whistler Medals Plaza in Mountain Square will be the focal point of medal ceremonies and broadcasts as they will be during the Olympics. WMP also hosts the closing ceremony.
Event Locations
Vancouver
Canada Hockey Place - Ice hockey finals
Vancouver Olympic Centre/Vancouver Paralympic Centre - Curling
Pacific Coliseum - Figure skating, short-track speed skating
UBC Thunderbird Arena - Ice hockey preliminaries
Whistler
The Whistler Sliding Centre - Bobsleigh, skeleton, luge
Whistler Creekside - Downhill, Super G, giant slalom, slalom, combined
Whistler Olympic Park/Whistler Paralympic Park - Ski jumping, Nordic combined, cross-country skiing, biathlon
Richmond
Richmond Olympic Oval - Speed skating
West Vancouver
Cypress Mountain - Freestyle skiing (aerials, moguls, ski cross) and snowboarding (parallel giant slalom, halfpipe, snowboard cross)
Source: Qantas The Australian Way November 2009