Whister Skiiers

NellyKanaanYo Guys, im heading to whistler in January for the first time. Where are the best powder runs and off piste runs? Cheers lads

anything off of olympic chair tbh

Arthurs choice is good if you you get there early enough. All of harmony and symphony bowl was sweet the days I was there. Theres really no way to go wrong. The whole mountain is fun once you get above the green blue area.

Lap Peak chair.

Every third or fourth run go into West bowl or just keep going at the bottom of Whistler Bowl and shred that dope terrain that has fresher snow and ride Red (or Gondi mid station if there are big queues at Red) back up to catch Peak. Having 2 options to get back to Peak is nice and Gondi midstation singles line there is never a wait keep skiing if Red is slammed.


There is fabulous terrain on Blackcomb. Just a heads up that when you ski it doing it again is going to take a long time in terms of skiing back to lifts and riding up a couple lifts to get back to the gnarly shit you just did and furthermore you can run into massive lines at any of the chairs making the laps of good terrain longer. So if you do Couliour Extreme or Secret Bowl or Spankeys or Blackcomb Glacier those laps are going to take 30-40 minutes each no matter how good you are or fast you ski. But all those chairs have fun terrain of their own off them that you can lap.


On Powder days get to Garbonzo and enjoy the dope pow runs off that first thing. There is no bullshit avy control on that lift and its rad. Peak and Harmony are the last to open. Good stuff opens a little sooner on Blackcomb. Either do fresh tracks to get an early upload at 715 or ride Fitzsimmons chair from the village which takes you to Garbonzo. Don't queue for Whistler Gondi.

Lots of great stuff off Harmony and Symphony but skiing the liftline is very rocky and why there aren't more tracks.

Heading in January too and appreciate all the recommendations. Thanks!

also coming to whistler in start of January, so stoked.

Reno is pretty on the money there with summing up all of whis.

Anyone stopping by in January shoot me a pm if you are looking for someone to ride with!

There's some pretty gnarly terrian on the frontside of Garfs, as long as you get there early enough.

Just landed in Whistler three days ago with my buddy and we have been skiing the past two days here. Epic terrain! Anyone who wants to ride around with us or drink a couple of beers? We are here for 2 months, so would be epic to get to know the terrain!

Blackcomb >>> Whistler imo, way less queues. Best terrain on Whistler is off Peak and you end up having to get Big Red and Peak after each lap, which is a ball ache.

On Blackcomb; 7th Heaven;

1) traverse skiers right as far as possible as you come off the chair to almost the skiers boundary, and you almost always have a big bowl full of some fresh snow.

2) head skiers left as you come off chair along the cat track, and drop into couloir extreme. If you're brave enough you can head to the viewing platform and traverse the Chainsaw ridgeline on the skiers left, loads of insane chutes and routes down from there too.

3) head skiers left as you come off the lift, and when you get to the colouir extreme entrance ignore it and follow the tracks below the viewing platform (so not crossing the ridgeline) Take a high traverse and you should cross two gates, ignore the pakolo chute and keep going until you have only cliffs (clearly marked) in front of you. Then ski down the Cougar Chutes to the right, normally fairly good snow as not tons of people know about them.

Glacier;

1) Head up Spankys ladder (skiers left off the lift, obviously bootpack). Tons of options here, my favourite is diamond bowl, dropping down into the bowl off the bootpack, and then taking a right and working your way down some chutes. Carrying on hiking the ridgeline after the bootpack also brings you to some nice terrain in ruby bowl.

2) Head skiers left off the lift and follow crystal traverse until just after your past Heavenly Bowl (signposted), and then cut down through some cool little chutes through the trees (smoked salmon and Don't Stop I think are 'official' names for them)

Crystal Ridge;

1) the lift line has some pretty fun little drops at the bottom.

2) if you are with someone who knows the area, take a hard skieers left coming off the lift and sidestep into the CBC line, pretty tough stuff with drops and chutes through the trees, but a few big cliffs if you go wrong way.

That's just a brief summary of some of my favourite runs in Blackcomb, imo much better than Whistler because so many of the lifts serve really good terrain, so even if you do a run like diamond bowl that spits you out at a different lift, you can just head up Crystal and find some new cool runs. On Whistler if you end up at Big Red, you are taking a one way route back to Peak if you want to ski anything fun again!

Thanks for all the great tips everyone! Have been looking at my poster sized trail map to see all the recommended areas and runs. Knew that Peak chair at Whistler always seems seems crowded so was going to try and avoid that area if it was.

Haven't heard much talk about the Harmony and Symphony chair runs though. Have seen tons of videos of bowl/glade runs off those chairs which is what I was looking forward to in Whistler as I'm used to East Coast groomer runs. Lift lines don't look too crazy there either or am I not seeing normal reality?

Going to Whistler for a week with my girlfriend who is just starting out skiing for maybe one of the ski 5 days and was thinking the Emerald lift area to spend on the day with her as she could hit some nice green slope areas and I could hit some small park/groomers beside her. Maybe a Burnt Stew run or two for the views as well. That a good plan or is there a better area for the 2 of us that day?

Thanks again for great advice!

Harmony and Symphony have some cool runs, but overall terrain is a bit flatter, particularly in Symphony unless you want to do a longish hike.
Queues at both will be bad in holidays/ weekends/ powder days, otherwise you are good. If you get a powder day, head up Glacier on blackcomb, one of the lifts that gets the least queues as there is no real beginner terrain up there.

NellyKanaanYo Guys, im heading to whistler in January for the first time. Where are the best powder runs and off piste runs? Cheers lads

Flute bowl! There's a little bit of a hike up but it's so worth it! If you traverse farther along the ridge, it's a bit easier than closer to like where you hike up, depending on what you're looking for. I'm from the east coast and only get out west about a week per year so I'm not the strongest skier out there. But Flute bowl was kind of the perfect difficulty for me. It's definitely steeper and more difficult than what we have back home, but it was rather enjoyable.

Like said before, Harmony and Symphony are really fun areas. I spent most of my time skiing there for sure!