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How crowded are Whistler, Revelstoke, Kicking Horse?

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Z-Juice
Posts: 3151 - Karma: 1,504
I am thinking about going to UBC for college, and skiing good mountains (and getting away from crowds) is a big reason why, but that's not important.

Anyways, I don't know if any of you BCers have ever been to a mountain like Keystone or Vail, which I have skied at for the past 10 years, but they are really crowded. I mean on a powday (even early in the morning) there is no chance that a person can get more than 3 decent runs before it is mostly tracked out (on 90% days). Also on half-decent days the average lift line is probably 7-10 minutes.

So I've heard Whistler gets "crowded", but whenever I watch an edit of Whistler people are skiing great pow with very few tracks. And I've also heard that Revelstoke and Kicking Horse are never crowded, what's the deal?

sorry if repost.
Aug 6 2012 3:38PM
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erikK
Posts: 3245 - Karma: 2,328
whis can get ridiculously crowded... especially on the popular lifts on a weekend. kicking horse and other mountains that are really fucking far away from ubc are not crowded at all
Aug 7 2012 5:56PM
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paige.
Posts: 1932 - Karma: 924
Whistler does get very crowded on a powder days, especially on weekends. If you're in the Peak chair lineup prepare to wait, but you'll also get these shenanigans for entertainment:

However there are places to find snow later on, especially if you're willing to explore. I've also found that after the massive crush in the morning many people will get sick of the lines and head home, leaving an almost empty hill with plenty of snow still to enjoy. If you're lucky enough it'll have kept snowing so you'll have an afternoon without the crowds and with the morning's tracks covered up.

If you're looking to ski Kicking Horse/Revelstoke/Fernie you should be looking at the University of Calgary not UBC. And they don't have the lineups Whistler gets because where the Vancouver crowd all goes to Whistler or maybe Baker, the Calgary crowd is diluted between Castle, Sunshine, Lake Louise, Fernie, Revie, KHo etc. Plus several of these hills are a further drive so you don't get many day-trippers (leaving you with a higher proportion of vacationers that stick to the groomers).
Aug 8 2012 12:55AM
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Z-Juice
Posts: 3151 - Karma: 1,504
Thanks a lot.

I was just wondering to see how a local compares Whistler to Kicking Horse or whatever, I have little interest in trying to stay that direction.
Aug 9 2012 3:48PM
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rudager
Posts: 11335 - Karma: 4,624
Kicking Horse isn't all too crowded that often. A lot of traffic that used to head to KH now is split between Revy and KH. So it makes for a good time.
Both mountains are big, with plenty of places to head. Revy has the faster gondola though, which diminishes the lines quicker, where as KH is slow. With KH however, once everyone is up on the mountain around 11, it's all spread out and lines aren't all that much of a problem
Aug 11 2012 1:04AM
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