Copied and pasted from another bike forum, apologies if it refers to people or experiences that make no sense in this context 
Also it's written with the intended audience of my mates who have never been to Whistler, I should rewrite it for all of you Whistler regulars but frankly can't be bothered 
[hr]
General holiday overview:
Travelling was a bit of a faff. I got to Stanstead at 4:30am for my 8:30 flight to be told it was delayed by 3 hours. Turned out to be 5 hours
Still, got there in the end. The flight takes 8-10hrs and the transfer was 2.5 hours on a bus (though if I go next year I'll sort out a van which will be cheaper and faster). Stunning scenary on the trip as you'd expect, flying over Greenland etc, and then driving up through the moutains
After just 3 days riding my hands looked like this. It got worse too, yet somehow after a few days they managed to heal over and hurt less and less. I blame my ****ty Boxxer Races, get me a Mojo cart! Not just me though, riding out in Whistler is punishing work even with an Avalanche fork, and days often ended with Sam looking like this
We rode every day, although one day I did only do 2 runs, we normally did 6-12. Normally in Morzine we have countless days off due to ****ty conditions, no need here, weather was good Every time you go up your liftpass gets scanned and you can ask how many runs you did, only 92 for me, my hands were hurting too much in the early days to ride more than half a dozen runs a day.
We stayed in Staff accommodation which is there for all of the people who work the lifts and in the shops etc. Cost is $10CDN/night or $14CDN/night if you want to be nearer to the village. I took the latter. Ride to the lift was about 5 minutes mostly along the flat. $10 is £4!! Sam stayed for free with Roger; I stayed there for a week too, sleeping on this sofa, but decided I needed to get some proper sleep (and I was a bit in the way) so after a week I moved upstairs to stay with 2 Canadian randoms, which wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. So yeah, cheap accommodation, £40/week, with this view when you wake up ;D
Weather was cracking, first 10 days was gorgeous sunshine with dustry trails, temp about 25°C so not too hot, and an ice cold water dispensor at the bottom of every run After that it started to rain a bit, but generally only at night and not enough to make anything muddy as such, just "tacky".
[hr]
Courses and riding:
As you probably already know, Whistler is very different to Morzine in that all the trails are on one hill. You have 2 chairlifts, one takes you up 1100feet, and 90% of the trails are from the top of that back to the village. The other lift ("Garbanzo", just opened) goes up a further 2200ft but currently only has 2 trails from it. Will be loads more next year no doubt.
Trails are graded like ski runs, with green being piss-easy, blue being "OK" and everything any of us would want to ride being rated "Black diamond" (advanced) or "double black diamond" (expert).
The famous Schleyer drop: Me, Roger, Sam. It may not look like it but I nearly flat bottomed that drop - landed well past the wood, a 10ft drop I guess. View from the top.
Before this section was a sweet rock garden interspersed with ladders and slabs.
One day we were out riding and came across Josh Bender and a bunch of guys on the trails. Rode with them briefly until Bender pulled over to scope out this new drop he'd spotted. He spent a good half hour preparing the run in and landing, fafftastic. Was cool to see him at work though, the guys he was ridign with had been with him all day and said he was a great tech rider on the trails, which I've heard before. Apparantly Schley does this drop in NWD4 somewhere. Bender drops in!
Lower Joyride: This obstacle was scary in the wet, imagine what you'd get it you laid planks of wood down 3 small sets of stairs and over the flat bits in between, that's what this was. Fine in the dry, scary as hell in the wet.
National course had this scary rock slab. Chack out Sam trying to descend it. First day we saw this we were both too scared to hit it, by the end of the holiday it seemed a piece of piss, wouldn't even hesitate rolling into it. I took this pic of Roger riding it, and Sam took this one of me. It looked and felt WAY steeper than that when riding it, was like riding down a frikkin wall!
Roger and Sam's favourite track was Dirt Merchant, I didn't really like it. Similar to Aline, lots of jumps, but they had really nasty G-out compressions at the bottom of them, that sort of thing unsettles me, I like to be relaxed rolling up to a jump. Roger on Dirt Merchant. Dirt merchant log ride
Rented a headcam on my penultimate day, and got some CRACKING footage, but it broke twice and we lost most of the good stuff :'( :'( Not seen the footage yet, hopefully Sam will post me a copy soon.... Rental should cost $100 but we got it for $35 because it kept breaking, not a bad price for the 40minutes of footage we did manage to get.
Steve would have creamed himself if he'd seen the skatepark, this is just a small part of it.
All holiday people were telling me about the bears they'd seen, and after 10 days of riding I was pissed I'd not seen any! Then finally on the uplift I spotted a Black bear cub, and tried my best to get a shot. Each day after that I saw bears much closer, but didn't have the camera to hand. One time the lift went about 6ft over mumma bear and her two cubs, so sweet Another time I was hooning down a fireroad (links 2 trails together) to see a black bear sitting on the track. It ran off before I hit it, pussy....
[hr]
Costs:
Living costs and bike parts are way cheaper than in Morzine. Whistler ISN'T the super expensive place you might think. Last year we were paying £4 for a beer in Morzine!
What is annoying is how taxes aren't included in stuff. On food and beer you basically need to add 25% to what it says on the menu to cover the taxes and your 10-15% tip.
PS I know the photos suck
Also it's written with the intended audience of my mates who have never been to Whistler, I should rewrite it for all of you Whistler regulars but frankly can't be bothered [hr]
General holiday overview:
Travelling was a bit of a faff. I got to Stanstead at 4:30am for my 8:30 flight to be told it was delayed by 3 hours. Turned out to be 5 hours
Still, got there in the end. The flight takes 8-10hrs and the transfer was 2.5 hours on a bus (though if I go next year I'll sort out a van which will be cheaper and faster). Stunning scenary on the trip as you'd expect, flying over Greenland etc, and then driving up through the moutains After just 3 days riding my hands looked like this. It got worse too, yet somehow after a few days they managed to heal over and hurt less and less. I blame my ****ty Boxxer Races, get me a Mojo cart! Not just me though, riding out in Whistler is punishing work even with an Avalanche fork, and days often ended with Sam looking like this
We rode every day, although one day I did only do 2 runs, we normally did 6-12. Normally in Morzine we have countless days off due to ****ty conditions, no need here, weather was good
Every time you go up your liftpass gets scanned and you can ask how many runs you did, only 92 for me, my hands were hurting too much in the early days to ride more than half a dozen runs a day.We stayed in Staff accommodation which is there for all of the people who work the lifts and in the shops etc. Cost is $10CDN/night or $14CDN/night if you want to be nearer to the village. I took the latter. Ride to the lift was about 5 minutes mostly along the flat. $10 is £4!!
Sam stayed for free with Roger; I stayed there for a week too, sleeping on this sofa, but decided I needed to get some proper sleep (and I was a bit in the way) so after a week I moved upstairs to stay with 2 Canadian randoms, which wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. So yeah, cheap accommodation, £40/week, with this view when you wake up ;DWeather was cracking, first 10 days was gorgeous sunshine with dustry trails, temp about 25°C so not too hot, and an ice cold water dispensor at the bottom of every run
After that it started to rain a bit, but generally only at night and not enough to make anything muddy as such, just "tacky".[hr]
Courses and riding:
As you probably already know, Whistler is very different to Morzine in that all the trails are on one hill. You have 2 chairlifts, one takes you up 1100feet, and 90% of the trails are from the top of that back to the village. The other lift ("Garbanzo", just opened) goes up a further 2200ft but currently only has 2 trails from it. Will be loads more next year no doubt.
Trails are graded like ski runs, with green being piss-easy, blue being "OK" and everything any of us would want to ride being rated "Black diamond" (advanced) or "double black diamond" (expert).
The famous Schleyer drop: Me, Roger, Sam. It may not look like it but I nearly flat bottomed that drop - landed well past the wood, a 10ft drop I guess. View from the top.
Before this section was a sweet rock garden interspersed with ladders and slabs.
One day we were out riding and came across Josh Bender and a bunch of guys on the trails. Rode with them briefly until Bender pulled over to scope out this new drop he'd spotted. He spent a good half hour preparing the run in and landing, fafftastic. Was cool to see him at work though, the guys he was ridign with had been with him all day and said he was a great tech rider on the trails, which I've heard before. Apparantly Schley does this drop in NWD4 somewhere. Bender drops in!
Lower Joyride: This obstacle was scary in the wet, imagine what you'd get it you laid planks of wood down 3 small sets of stairs and over the flat bits in between, that's what this was. Fine in the dry, scary as hell in the wet.
National course had this scary rock slab. Chack out Sam trying to descend it. First day we saw this we were both too scared to hit it, by the end of the holiday it seemed a piece of piss, wouldn't even hesitate rolling into it. I took this pic of Roger riding it, and Sam took this one of me. It looked and felt WAY steeper than that when riding it, was like riding down a frikkin wall!
Roger and Sam's favourite track was Dirt Merchant, I didn't really like it. Similar to Aline, lots of jumps, but they had really nasty G-out compressions at the bottom of them, that sort of thing unsettles me, I like to be relaxed rolling up to a jump. Roger on Dirt Merchant. Dirt merchant log ride
Rented a headcam on my penultimate day, and got some CRACKING footage, but it broke twice and we lost most of the good stuff :'( :'( Not seen the footage yet, hopefully Sam will post me a copy soon.... Rental should cost $100 but we got it for $35 because it kept breaking, not a bad price for the 40minutes of footage we did manage to get.
Steve would have creamed himself if he'd seen the skatepark, this is just a small part of it.
All holiday people were telling me about the bears they'd seen, and after 10 days of riding I was pissed I'd not seen any! Then finally on the uplift I spotted a Black bear cub, and tried my best to get a shot. Each day after that I saw bears much closer, but didn't have the camera to hand. One time the lift went about 6ft over mumma bear and her two cubs, so sweet
Another time I was hooning down a fireroad (links 2 trails together) to see a black bear sitting on the track. It ran off before I hit it, pussy....[hr]
Costs:
- Flight: £386. I got charged 10kg excess baggage on the way out (the scales said I had 50kg when I'm allowed 20...). On my return they tried to charge me all 30kg, but then his supervisor told him bikes go free so he didn't charge me at all, reeeeeeeeesult. So flights were £411 if you include my £25 charge.
- Transfer: $240 (£98 but I know how to do it cheaper next year).
- Liftpass: $320CDN (£130)
- Airport parking: £109
- Accommodation: $14/night = £74
- Beer: $5-$6 (£2-£3). Not toooo bad.
- Meals: $6-$15 (£2.50-£6) cheap
Living costs and bike parts are way cheaper than in Morzine. Whistler ISN'T the super expensive place you might think. Last year we were paying £4 for a beer in Morzine!
What is annoying is how taxes aren't included in stuff. On food and beer you basically need to add 25% to what it says on the menu to cover the taxes and your 10-15% tip.
PS I know the photos suck
