Welcome to
Whistler-Blackcomb Views!
Once two separate ski resort mountains, Whistler
and Blackcomb ski areas combined in 1997 to become
the internationally known ski resort of
Whistler-Blackcomb. This famous award-winning ski
resort is in the Canadian Province of British
Columbia. Whistler Village at the ski resort
contains a mix of homes, condos, eating
establishments, shops, and hotels. The town of
Whistler has nearly ten thousand people living
there year round. For its ski terrain and summer
mountain biking experiences, millions of visitors
arrive at Whistler-Blackcomb each year. Most of
these tourists will arrive through the city of
Vancouver, Canada and the Vancouver International
Airport just over seventy miles away. Whistler,
Canada is reached by car on British Columbia
Highway 99. British Columbia Highway 99 is often
referred to as the “Sea-to-Sky Highway.” At over
eight thousand acres, Whistler-Blackcomb together
form the biggest ski area in either the United
States or Canada. Vail, Colorado is a distant
runner-up at second with over five thousand
skiable acres. Whistler Mountain is 7,160 feet
above sea level at its peak. Whistler Mountain
opened to public skiing in 1966. Blackcomb
Peak is 7,495 feet at its tallest with a base
elevation of just over 2,200 feet. Blackcomb
Peak and Whistler Mountain are at the edge of
Garibaldi Provincial Park in the Fitzsimmons
Mountain Range in British Columbia. Each
mountain is reached by its own gondola ski
lift with a third gondola for Whistler
Mountain running from the Creekside Base in
the ski village. Whistler-Blackcomb operates
thirty-eight ski lifts in total. A new gondola
lift, when finished for the 2008-2009 ski
season, will connect Whistler and Blackcomb
Peaks at a halfway up point of the mountains.
When open, this new gondola will set new tower
height and distance ski lift records at a
construction cost of over fifty million
dollars. The ski resort has over two hundred
different trails to ski and receives about
four hundred inches of snow annually. The
longest trail is about seven miles long. It is
possible for the ski season to run from
mid-November to the end of May—dependent on
yearly weather conditions. For non-skiers,
winter activities such as sleigh rides, dog
sledding, snowshoe hiking, helicopter rides,
tubing, and snowmobile tours are all available
through the Whistler-Blackcomb Ski Resort.
Intrawest, a Vancouver, British Columbia based
resort-company, is the owner of
Whistler-Blackcomb. Intrawest operates a
number of other ski resorts including the
Colorado ski resorts of Copper Mountain, Steamboat Springs, and Winter Park.
