Canadian fields put the thrills and glamour into top ski-ing

Press, 27 March 1986, Page 13

Canadian fields put the thrills and glamour into top ski-ing

About two months still remain before New Zealand skiers will start heading for the slopes, but TIM DUNBAR has already had the whiff of powder snow in his nostrils. He has just returned from sampling the spring snow of Western Canadian ski-fields by courtesy of Canadian Pacific Air Lines and Transpacific Tours.

When you pack some of the finest ski-ing in the world into just four days there is no time for jet-lag to set in. Ski-ing for that length of time in Western Canada with its unbelievable mountain scenery was like quaffing a good glass of wine and then finding the bottle has been taken away. For someone whose sole skiing experience has been on New Zealand fields, albeit about 14 of them, the contrast was bewildering. But by the time we were skiing the fourth different area in as many days the proximity of trees was no longer something to marvel at.

Taking a look at the trail maps before actually venturing on to the first ski area or two could be quite daunting. But in reality there was plenty of room to ski between the trees. At all four ski areas, Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains in British Columbia, and Sunshine Village and Lake Louise in Alberta, it was possible to have Bkm-long runs, if your knees and thighs could stand them. They had so many different trails that only on rare occasions did we ski the same run twice. And the work of the snowgrooming fleets ensured that the slopes were not hazardous, though bumps were there for those so inclined. The snow bases were all around two metres, virtually eliminating, rock-hopping, and after a chilling first day temperatures became almost mild, a great contrast from the previous week when it had been minus 30 at Sunshine.

There was the thrill of ski-ing on the World Cup downhill courses (admittedly with a few more turns than the racers) at Whistler Mountain and Sunshine; there were the comforts in Whistler of being able to put your skis on little more than 50 metres from the hotel door, and both there and elsewhere the chance to have beer or wine with lunch. So far night ski-ing (available on Grouse Mountain only 15min from downtown Vancouver) remains untried, and the famed waist-deep dry powder of North America undiscovered.

Whistler Mountain, Whistler, British Columbia, 120 km from Vancouver. Lifts: three triplechairs, seven double chairs, two T-bars, gondola, two handle tows, platter. Capacity: 15,595 skiers per hour. Vertical drop: 1305 m. Number of runs: 70. Adult lift charges: sCan2s (5NZ33.75). Date visited: Monthly, February 24. J 7

Clear plastic "designer” rubbish bags cut off at the shoulders might not yet be the rage of New Zealand ski-fields but they were de rigueur (Canada has been bilingual for some time) at Whistler in the rain and sleet. Even with the extra protection the other four layers of clothing still got damp in the course of the day, and ski gloves frequently had to be wrung out as we headed for the shelter of the Ski Inns. It was not, they told us, one of Whistler’s better days. The knee-length bags had their affect on ski-ing technique as they precluded snow-ploughs and made sidestepping tricky. On the smallest member of our group the bag became a maxi-length number and this brought about an untimely dive or two. There were two further new experiences for some of us — tree ski-ing and ski-ing by braille as glasses and goggles became impossible to see through. But such was the expertise of our Ski Esprit guide, Susan Paul, and so well groomed were the slopes, that it did not matter. The whoops from Kiwis unaccustomed to snow ski-ing in February were unabated. The great vertical ski-ing height of Whistler Mountain sent us through weather changes on the way up the chairs — from sleet to snow to near blizzard, and even the chubbiest of cheeks became chilled.

Sustenance at 1800 metres

Salvation came, about 1800 metres above sea level at Pika’s which had a Cappuchino bar offering among other things beer, cider or hot wine and, nearby, custom sandwiches with a choice of black forest ham and cheese, shrimp or smoked salmon.

Later, down in the village, a Ruapehu skier in the group emerged from Nasty Jack’s restaurant with what he termed a “Tukino special” — hot chocolate and drambuie, a warming concoction.

The restaurant banned skis, poles, and packed lunches but there were no restrictions on wearing ski boots or wearing a dripping rubbish bag.

Blackcomb Mountain, Whistler, British Columbia, 120 km from Vancouver. Lifts: five triple-chairs, one double-chair, high alpine T-bar. Capacity: 11,200 skiers per hour. Vertical drop: 1009 m. .Number of runs: 47. Adult lift charges: $3l. Date

visited: Tuesday, February 25. Snow base: 199 cm.

Blackcomb sits in friendly proximity to Whistler and it is appropriate that the former has taken over from the latter as the ski area with the longest liftserviced vertical drop in North America. Its new T-bar, opening up an area called “Seventh Heaven,” has added 469 m vertical and tripled the ski-ing terrain.

Wind had closed the T-bar on this occasion and we were denied the chance to ski its four alpine bowls and steep chutes, but the runs were more than long enough anyway. This time we would actually see the mountain which made for an awesome sight during the 45min it takes to get to the Summit Restaurant via four triple-chairs.

While Whistler is known for its variety of ski-ing, the big thing about Blackcomb is that you do much more fall line ski-ing. You ski down, rather than across, to get on all the lifts, and ski down to the chalets. The complete trip down for a luncheon assignation occupied about 20min, including two or three urgently-needed breathers.

At this, and the other three ski areas sampled, were both easy and hard routes down. Here the unadventurous, the inexperienced, or even those feeling a little seedy can follow the nicely named Skid Road, marked in green, from the top to the bottom.

Blackcomb, developed only five years ago, has come up with an interesting idea. A number of sniffle stations have been set up, each with a trail map, facial tissue, and a mirror to check for frostbite. After the long rides on the chairs finding that one’s nose or ears are still functional must be reassuring. Again, no queues at all, and it seems that even on the busiest of week-ends the wait in the lift lines never exceeds 15min.

We had no complaints about the excellent spring snow ski-ing, but a long-time Whistler resident, Nancy Greene, saw it differently. She said, a trifle facetiously, that “without sunshine or powder” she was prepared to give a rating of only one mark out of 10 instead of the usual 10.

The former Olympic champion has just opened her own hotel, Nancy Greene’s Olympic Lodge, in the village, and it has a piano bar with a nice, relaxed atmosphere. A number of night spot choices are available for those wanting a more frenetic pace. In residence in Nancy’s piano bar was Skipp Pollariy a big, black

Vancouverite who claimed, as the New Zealand group came in the door, that they were out of step.

Sunshine Village, Alberta, 20km from Banff, 141 km from Calgary. Lifts: one triple-chair, five double-chairs, three T-bars, gondola, two rope tows. Capacity: 13,900 skiers per hour. Vertical drop: 1070 m. Number of runs: 103. Adult lift charges: $35. Date visited: Wednesday, February 26. Snow base: 210 m.

The beautiful resort town of Banff was first sighted about three o’clock in the morning after a bus ride, a 52min flight from Vancouver to Calgary, and another bus ride. Only a few hours later we were ski-ing in the Canadian Rockies.

Our timing was impeccable. Only the day before ice had closed the roads to all three Banff ski areas — Mount Norquay, Sunshine Village, and Lake Louise. Now the bitterly cold weather had gone and the Chinook was on the way, but there was snow aplenty.

It was 'save a

tree day’

Sunshine has the longest gondola in Canada, and one visitor remarked that it was worth going there just for the 19min scenic ride from the “parking lot” to the ski area. The six-person gondola travels at about 5m per second (twice the speed of most chairlifts) for the 4.2 km journey which takes in a vertical rise of 490 m.

The long run home from the top of the Great Divide chairlift, 2716 m up on Lookout Mountain, back to the car park, was better still. A ski run of Bkm at the end of the day. Sunshine boasts the longest season in Canada, from midNovember to June, and the latest dump had pushed the snow base up by 20cm. Some members of the staff of 400 were still shovelling snow off chairs as skiers waited in the liftline, and ski patrollers were “bombing” slopes all day to stabilise the snow. Around the village area trees proliferated, from the sub-alpine fir, to a hardy variety of spruce, to the seemingly dead larch. During our tree ski-ing excursions our guide urged us to avoid hitting them. It was, he claimed, "save a tree day.” Above the treeline, though, it could almost have .been Mount Hutt On the wide, open bowls up there the ski-ing was sublime, though the steepish slope below Brewster Rock brought about a head plant in face-tingling powder. Marketing manager of the ski area is David Irwin, former Canadian World Cup downhill racer and New Zealand)fteam

coach. He says that Sunshine Village caters for the ski enthusiast of all abilities. “This is where ski-ing is really at its best in the west.”

Sunshine also offers the only on-hill accommodation in the Canadian Rockies, Sunshine Inn, which has saunas, hot tubs, and 90 rooms. “You can stay right on the hill, have an early morning cup of coffee, and slide out of the door,” David Irwin said. Early arrivals from down below can even have breakfast for just 95c in the daylodge between 7.30 and 9. Back down in Banff there were elks lounging around the sidewalk. But, thankfully, no sign of bears, though we were reminded that one had wandered into Jasper, Alberta, in another national park about a year ago.

Lake Louise, Alberta, 56km from Banff, 177 km from Calgary. Lifts: two triple-chairs, four double-chairs, gondola, beginners’ T-bar, summit poma. Vertical drop: 1000 m. Number of runs: 43. Adult lift charges: $33.75. Date visited: Thursday, February 27.

By way of variation four of us travelled up to the Lake Louise ski area in a big, throaty (the muffler was missing) four-door GMC utility. Our driver was a Canadian native, “Griz” Rowlands, a onetime ski school director at Mount Cheeseman. He was taking a break from duties at the tiny Rabbit Hill ski area just out of Edmonton. It has a vertical drop of barely 90m. Lake Louise, with 1000 metres of vertical and its wide trails, was a revelation for both us and “Griz.” You ski virtually four sides of the mountain, including the back. Hence a popular line of T-shirts reading, “Ski the backside of Louise.”

From the top of the mountain you can just make out the famous little sapphire lake itself way down below. The lake is frozen over, as it is for all but about three months of the year, because of the glacier that feeds it. Snow-making is in its second year at Lake Louise and the roar of the guns is almost deafening as skiers ride up the first triplechair for early morning runs. The snow is made over an area of 40 hectares on the front side of the mountain; it enables an extended season with continued access back to the base area.

Freely available to guide you around the mountain, be it the front side, the larch side,'Or the back bowls, are volunteer hosts or hostesses known as “Ski Friends.” There are more than 50 of them. Thursday is “Grandmothers day” and our guides, who had come all the way from Calgary, were lovely company and seemed to have as good a time as we did.

Over the great expanse of the mountain we encountered a considerable variety of snow condi-

tions. From hard pack with sizeable lumps, which our Rabbit Hill friend called “death cookies,” to squeaky-clean powder, to challenging moguls which upset carefully nurtured egos. The ski area was so big one would not tire of it in a week of exploration. Here the slope difficulty lends

itself more to the advanced skier, fully 35 per cent of the area being rated as expert compared with 20 per cent at Sunshine. Four ski areas were to be our lot, not one to be sneezed at, though from our hotel bar in Banff the lights on nearby Mount Norquay, where there is night

ski-ing until 9 o’clock four days a week, looked most tempting. On the flight back home a young Canadian woman, a travel agent, asked if we had ski-ing in New Zealand. After sampling the spring snow of Whistler, Blackcomb, Sunshine, and Lake Louise I had almost forgotten that we did.