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Canada
I worked for Vail for a few seasons and had a wicked time! I'm still here! Because Colorado snow and mountains and parties are sweet!
They provided my visa, accommodation and free ski pass for 5+ mountains and it was so easy! The only thing is that they require you to work all season-long, from mid-Nov to mid-April, but spring skiing rocks anyway!
I came on an H2B visa and all I had to pay for was travel and an appointment at the consulate. Do it! You won't regret it!
In several north American and Canadian resorts, like Whistler, you can often get a refund from you ski pass for days you haven't skied. Great news if the weather doesn't play ball.
Blackcomb mountain is the one for snowboarders while skiers tend to prefer Whistler. Blackcomb has an awesome board park and some of the best runs for riders. 7th Heaven is just fantastic while Rock n Roll is a fantastic long blue for cranking the speed up with lots of big left and right handers. Best of all there's always plenty of powder days!
During school holidays, the lift queues can be enormous. How to beat them? Take the Fitzsimmons and Garbanzo chairlifts instead of the gondola on Whistler mountain.
Head up the mountain at 8.30am instead of 10. Join the singles lines. These move quickly and you meet locals who might share a tip on a hidden powder stash. (Or you can sneakily follow them!).
Try Crystal Chair on Blackcomb. It's older and slower, so queues are shorter and there's some fantastic terrain and sweet tree riding.
The Wizard chair is a great place to take to the hill for the first time. The slopes are the ideal gradient for learner skiers and snowboarders, and the pistes are well groomed so there are no nasty surprises in store!
Right at the bottom of Blackcomb.
If you’re keen to do some serious shopping for snowboarding kit (and with the pound being relatively strong against the dollar, why not?), The Circle is the place. It stocks a wide range of brands and the staff are very helpful. Also check out Evolution.
The Circle
108 4369 Main Street
Tel: +1 604 905 4422
Evolution
8- 4122 Village Green
Tel: +1 604 932 2967
Showcase is the best spot in town to have your snowboard serviced. The staff are friendly and do a good job, and they’ll take on anything from a quick wax to a more involved repair. It’s right next door to the all-girls Burton shop.
Telephone: +1 604 905 2022
The Blackcomb park gets very busy, mostly with skiers and snowboarders of a very high standard.
This can be very intimidating for newcomers, so the Whistler park (known officially as the ‘Habitat Terrain Park’) is a great lower key alternative – it has a large assortment of rails and jumps to please all but the experts, and it’s a lot quieter allowing you to find your feet in peace.
As with all of Whistler it’s extremely convenient – you can do quick and easy laps on the Emerald Express chair.
Whistler is famed for having one of the best snowparks in the world, but the park is actually at Blackcomb!
There’s a beginner/intermediate one that’s great for most people, or for more experienced skiers and
snowboarders, there’s the advanced park just to the left of it. Helmets are compulsory in the advanced park.
Both parks are very long and very well maintained by European standards, and doing circuits on them is easy thanks to the nearby chairlift.
If you haven't had your fix of snow come May, book yourself a late-season trip. Although Blackcomb closes on April 23rd, Whistler mountain remains open until June 4th.
The snow may be on the slushy side, but skiing or boarding in a T-shirt and finishing the day off with a few beers on the Roundhouse patio is pretty awesome.
Powder in May is certainly not unheard of and, the way things are going so far (a record 469cm in January alone!), is looking increasingly likely this season.
One-day spring season tickets are just CAN$46, a bargain compared with the whopping CAN$75 charged over Christmas. And if you still want more, Blackcomb reopens in the summer for glacier skiing and riding, usually until late July or early August.
When there's plenty of fresh snow (quite often considering Whistler has just had the snowiest January on record- 461cm!), take the peak chair and ride the peak-to-creek run taking the 'Khiber's Pass' line down to creek side, this run is unpisted and is pretty much the most fun you can have on a board!
Whistler mountain on fresh powder days
Blackcomb mountain is awesome with various terrain parks and less shit-trucks.
Blackcomb mountain
Though the steep slopes may look forbidding from the Roundhouse Lodge, once on top there are incredible views and hardly anybody else. There are lots of options and the runs are long, usually with better snow than other areas.
Most of Whistler/Blackcomb is covered with trees so it’s a pretty good place to be on days when the weather closes in, but Crystal chairlift on Blackcomb is particularly entertaining. It’s a good long run and there’s plenty to keep you amused whether you’re into skiing nicely groomed pistes or jibbing on a snowboard. Avoid the higher up chairlifts – as soon as you get above the treeline then you won’t be able to see a thing.
When the snow is good, the Flute and Whistler bowls are both epic. They’re avalanche controlled, but it pays to take avalanche safety equipment with you and know how to use it. Also, go with someone who knows where they’re going, or failing that hire a guide. Getting lost in there doesn’t come highly recommended.
This is possibly the best fun you’ll have in Whistler. Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night from 5-9pm you can ride under floodlights on the Magic Carpet chair at Blackcomb – an area that includes the park and pipe. The snow gets pretty hard but they look after the pistes so well that this isn’t really a problem.
My key snowboarding tip afor Whistler is when it's a powder day, always start on the left of the mountain and move to the right during the day. That's simply because that's where the wind blows it.
In terms of buying kit there, always have a chat with one of the Whistler instructors as they know the best deals in town.
In terms of lessons - I had a guide called Oli Walker who was the business and showed me some excellent runs that I wouldn't have noticed otherwise.
8,200 feet of terrain, huge parks, three glaciers - this place is huge.
Whistler or Blackcomb
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