Thinking about next year and considering Whistler. I would be there with my 9yr old son so we would be staying away from the harder trails but it stuff like A line and Dirt merchant look like they would be fine. Some questions for those that have been:

Is it really worth the extra hassle/money etc over staying in Europe?
Is the weather usually good in July/August?
How bad are the lift queues?
Are there many younger kids riding the park?
Is there enough for a month or would I need to combine it with somewhere else? If so, where?

Cheers

I wouldnt go again. It’s a shithole

Squamish or nelson BC, I’d love to go there again

It’s a shithole

You think? Was awesome when I was there in 08?

I’d go back in a heartbeat!

I would be there with my 9yr old son so we would be staying away from the harder trails but it stuff like A line and Dirt merchant look like they would be fine.

LOL! I guess you haven’t been? Be prepared to have your son’s swearing knowledge greatly increased as all the locals hurl abuse at him for wrecking their lap. A Line and DM may look easy in the videos but they are FAST and unless your son can jump 20ft to fit the trannies then he’ll get eaten alive.

On the positive side, plenty of kids go in the Park and it’s quieter on week days.

I like the trails but hate the place. Plenty of better places in BC if your son likes to travel.

Yes. I loved it, didn’t get bored in 2-3 months of it.

LOL! I guess you haven’t been? Be prepared to have your son’s swearing knowledge greatly increased as all the locals hurl abuse at him for wrecking their lap. A Line and DM may look easy in the videos but they are FAST and unless your son can jump 20ft to fit the trannies then he’ll get eaten alive.

So is it like Morzine with bears?

I’m pretty sure he would be OK on the trails but if there is going to be a lot of dickheads giving him a hard time for slowing them down then it would suck. Is it really like that?

You get the odd few dickheads but its not that bad. A Line and DM seem to attract the rock stars who think they’re all that.. Sticking to Crank It Up etc you won’t get it. Don’t really get the “shit hole” comments either, the area and its surroundings are great. Depends whether you want “nice” pubs/restaurants or good night life in town. I can imagine the food in France would be better (proper boulangeries, and some places in whis are extortionate!) but self catered/sushi village will be fine 🙂 moguls burritos are awesome as well.

Re the weather i think we had one day of rain last August, tbh it was nice to have a break to rest the joints!

I have come across relatively little attitude up there and I’m not the fastest, just pull over if your holding some one up as there are a lot of very fast guys out there, stick to the easier ones like b-line and crank it up with the kid unless he’s like the kids in those recent videos. Lips on A-line and dirt merchant are pretty big and take some balls to hit properly. Lift lines aren’t that bad and move pretty quickly and i’ve only been up at weekends this year, 20 minutes is a welcome break between laps to be honest. Re. weather, august would be the safest bet and almost guarantee good weather, july should be good but more chance of rain.

The trails are great whether its in the park or outside of it. The scenery is stupendous & there are many, many outdoor things to do off the bike. The weather can be really mixed (it’s the mountains right), this wk it’s about 18c, the wk before it was 25c+ & they reckon it could that by the end of the wk again. There are fantastic lakes to swim in & trails to walk/run.

That’s the good news.

The town is awful compared to any European alpine resorts. Utterly charmless, crass & manufactured. Too many “rad dudes shredding the gnar” & then talking bollox in the bars about it after…the place is full of Aussies (who seem to be a lot more chilled than your London variety & a lot less in your face) & a lot of Brit kids living the dream before realising that as much fun as being a sk/bike bum is, its hard to pay the bills & you don’t get as much time off to ride/ski/play as you might have hoped. The Canadians I’ve met here are the nicest North Americans I’ve ever met, genuine & funny & warm. The town has an international flavour which is good but you live in a bubble when your here. I do plan to be back next year but I won’t stay in Whistler..

By all means ride in BC, it’s very impressive but I’d stay away from Whistler town itself. Better off in Squamish or Creekside perhaps.

I’m pretty sure he would be OK on the trails but if there is going to be a lot of dickheads giving him a hard time for slowing them down then it would suck. Is it really like that?

I’m the first person to smirk at the Whistler pyjama crowd but when it comes to the trails that you mentioned, I do have some sympathy. These trails are like computer games in that you have to hit them at fairly specific speeds otherwise at best you have to slow down and fail to clear the next set of jumps, and at worst end up in a big crash. They are marked ‘black’ and both have (somewhat lame) qualifier drops at the beginning to try and deter beginners, but hey you’re in Whistler and you HAVE to ride A Line 😉 Trails like B Line, Crank It Up, Heart Of Darkness, Ho Chi Min etc are aimed more towards beginners, and while they are fun to hit at high speed, the slower rider always has priority so the ‘pros’ just have to suck it up and wait. Just either pick your trails or time of day carefully, stay alert and all will be good. The medical center is local if not 😉 It’s always busy…..

worth going? yes. with a 9 yr old, maybe not depending on your intentions.

Sign your kid up for some classes, he’ll be in good hands, won’t get any grief and kicking your ass in no time!

Maybe I should qualify a bit. He is a good rider, has been riding the euro parks for 3 years, can jump, can ride stuff like the world cup course in Valnord, is pretty quick and will not be mincing down the trails on an Isla bike. He will obviously be slower than the quick guys but he will not be a liability.

If I thought he would be out of his depth I wouldn’t take him. I am really asking if its worth the trip over the Atlantic or is Whistler just a Canadian version of Deux Alpes (which is obviously cheaper and less trouble to get to)

I’d say it’s worth it but if you want to feel that you are experiencing at least a small amount of life in another country then you’ll potentially want to travel about a bit too. Or if you just want to hit a load of trails, drink crap beer and screw the culture side of things, then you’ll love it!

in that case, yes, yes and thrice yes!

Amazing trails (that finish in the same place, nowt worse than a mechanical when there’s 5 mile and a 3000ft mountain between you and home). If Garbanzo’s open take him down Blue Velvet, other trails that hare good fun with out being stupidly fast (unless you want them to be) are karate monkey, ninja cougar, samuri pizza cat, world cup xc, angry pirate. the full Crank it up into Heart of Darkness is a great run too. B-line is a nice mellow trail. I’d avoid the greens (other than WC XC) as they’re a bit dull and pedally, ok for a clear the head/ warm up first thing trail.

As for the town, i kind of like it, ok it lacks the deleverence-esk charms of Pemberton and ‘Squish, but it’s clean and there’s plenty of places to eat, Kase is my favourite of the sushi places there. it is as has been said like living in a bubble but that’s to be expected.

So what other decent parks are there in travelling distance of Whistler? What is Kicking Horse like?

We would be happy to travel a bit but in essence it would be a riding holiday and it would need to be lift assisted as he would definitely struggle to get up any hills on his downhill bike.

Squamish looks awesome (gutted i never got to ride there) and ticket2ride do shuttle assisted days there! The surrounding non bike park trails around whistler are also fun but a bike that pedals up hill better would probably make them a lot better!

did Sunpeaks (near Kamloops) back in 2002 and it was fun. looks a lot better these days, not too far away.

There’s also Silver Star as well, also a fair bit nearer than Kicking Horse.

Have a look on nsmb.com and their forum as i’m sure all the BC bike parks will be mentioned there, then youtube the trails.

Kicking horse trails are just about ok but you will take at least a day just driving one way without riding that day. It’s a bloody long way for us englishers

Top of kicking horse on the right is great and easy enough for most uk riders
Off to the left is insane. Think the hardest thing available in alps and double it

Mid mountain is great and natural trails

Bottoms is jumps and the like at various levels of difficulty

Kickinghorse is a long way from Whistler, its also very rough which may or may not be your thing
Sunpeaks is fantastic in Kamloops
Silverstar is also fantastic in Vernon
Whistler is great in the week but I can’t be bothered at the weekend as its busy if your kid likes jumping he will love Silverstar as they have some great groomed jumpy runs called rockstar{black},superstar{blue} and pipe dream{double black diamond}

it’s worth going just for the freaking bears.
there’s nothing like popping out of some forest into an open section to be confronted by a momma bear and her two cubs trotting up the trail. or whizzing through some tight singletrack through the woods and seeing a bear’s face popping out of a tree literally inches from your face.

i would go just to see hexhamstu’s truck 😉

It’s the best bike park in the world. If you like riding DH bikes it’ll be worth it.

It’s better maintained than the Alps and more sculpted/fun, but surprisingly small in comparison. Bear in mind there are only 2 lifts. I used to love going up there for the weekend when I lived in Seattle but it might get boring for a whole week

It’s better maintained than the Alps and more sculpted/fun, but surprisingly small in comparison. Bear in mind there are only 2 lifts.

I was coming to that conclusion looking at the trail maps, 400m of vertical for the majority of the runs does not seem much and they don’t look too long either. A 2km downhill with a 20 min wait for the next lift would soon begin to get frustrating. Or am I missing something?

Sunpeaks looked OK from the videos but is it really any better than what you can find in Europe?

I only ever had a long wait once or twice in the time i was there, on the weekend before and closing weekend… normally <5 mins even on weekends.

I went to Sun Peaks in 2008, there were some excellent trails, very different to Whistler – felt a lot more natural. It was very dry though and some of the trails, especially the steep ones, were like riding on sand which was interesting. The trails were nowhere near as groomed as Whistler, which was to their deteriment as some stuff (jumps) weren’t rideable because they hadn’t been maintained.
Having said that, there were notices around talking about a lot of maintenance that was planned for the closed season so it may be better now.
The town is a bit weird – kind of had an eerie ghost town feel to it when we went and some odd folk wandering around.
Having said that we still had an excellent time. 😀

Are there many younger kids riding the park?

Loads of kids ripping.. most infamously:

Jackson Goldstein – 8yrs
Finn Finestone – 9yrs

400m of vertical for the majority of the runs does not seem much and they don’t look too long either. A 2km downhill with a 20 min wait for the next lift would soon begin to get frustrating. Or am I missing something?

Yes.. they are not your European or UK trail centre tracks..In excess of 250kms of purpose built bike specific trails.. not goat tracks or walking trails that you ride down.. real mountain bike trails!
20minute lines are pretty much crankworx or long weekends only.
You can ride lifts up to 1850m and ride back down to 650m. ‘Top of the world’ is now almost all mtb trail now.. only 1.5km or so of double track access road.

If your kid can pedal too, there’s lots of fun XC/AM/Trail riding without huge climbs in the valley.

We have guests that come out specifically to ride a-line and dirt on repeat for 2 weeks.. (not my cup of tea) and others that ride everything by progressing through to even the toughest trails.
You have to see it to understand it imo.. the media coverage often misses the point.

If you’re in for a month, you could hook him into the DFX program or get him lined up with someone like Derek Foose.. gets him riding with other rippers and gives you chance to ride for yourself some days.

Give us a shout if you want any further info.

Down in Vancouver, Endless Biking run kids programs on the North Shore trails. You’re options for a month are pretty darn good!

Was there in 07 and thought it was fantastic. The Bike Park seemed very kid friendly and from a biking perspective it is close to loads of other good trails should you get fed up with the bike park. It is also worth noting that you are near Vancouver which has a lot of other attractions (Whale watching etc) which kids will love.

Yes.. they are not your European or UK trail centre tracks..In excess of 250kms of purpose built bike specific trails.. not goat tracks or walking trails that you ride down.. real mountain bike trails!

This is the dilemma, I am sure that if whistler was in Europe it would be an annual destination. He loves the fast open aerial stuff and there seems to be plenty of that at Whistler. However, places like Deux alpes have a fair bit as well, are easier to get to and are way cheaper in terms of lift passes and almost everything else.

We would only really be able to ride the parks as he (and I) would struggle to ride up hills on the bikes we would be taking with us. Whereas in Europe we can take two bikes each in the van and do other stuff if the mood takes. Those kids camps sound good but at $150 a day aren’t really an option. A trip to Canada would probably work out three times as expensive as our usual 4/5 weeks in Europe and be shorter.

I can believe that Whistler is better than anywhere on the continent but what I am asking is “is Canada worth the big premium over a european holiday?”

Much as I like WBP, one can’t really dismiss the whole of Europe due to the trails being ‘goat tracks or walking trails’ ha ha ha ha ha!!!

I’m just back from a week in Whistler. Stayed with Bearbackbiking. 6 of us on their all inclusive Whistler package, with a guide provided for the mornings (Mark Hill – fantastic coach & guide). Previously we’d ridden with Trail Addiction in Les Arcs, French Alps.

Was Whistler worth it? Life changing.

If you’re looking to push you riding up a level and ride fantastic purpose built trails, Whistler is worth a visit. I started the week nervously casing 8 ft table tops, by the end of the week I was riding the containers on Freight Train and cleared the gaps and the wooden table on Fade to Black. Another week and I would have been clearing all the table tops on A Line. The best thing we did was to stay with BBB and have a guide for the week. We wouldn’t have made half the progress without him. Accommodation and food was great, bike workshop in the basement was a lifeline. 5 min walk from the chalet was a lake. Swimming there on an evening was sublime.

I had been riding with the family at Les Deux Alpes two weeks prior to the Whistler visit, 2 kids 11 & 13. I like 2Apes but you cannot compare it with Whistler (it isn’t fair to 2Alpes). Would I take my kids to Whistler? Only if I enrolled them on a tuition programme on full sus. bikes – guide in the am, with Dad in the pm. I would NOT take them down A Line & Dirt Merchant (unless they were already riding DH courses/bike parks in the UK). We were on 6 & 7 inch bikes with all the protection and our guide (as a matter of policy) would not take us down A line on the first day. (also, he wanted to qualify our ability – and rightly so).

So; visit Whistler, take a big bike, use a guide/coach, go catered (eating out in Whistler will dent your wallet), enjoy the ride of your life.

I had been riding with the family at Les Deux Alpes two weeks prior to the Whistler visit, 2 kids 11 & 13. I like 2Apes but you cannot compare it with Whistler (it isn’t fair to 2Alpes). Would I take my kids to Whistler? Only if I enrolled them on a tuition programme on full sus. bikes

What sort of trails were your kids riding at deux alpes?

The DH trails: The blue and green. Tabletops, woodwork and berms. They were on 24inch hard tails and managed fine. My 11 year old even ended up tailgating some guys on DH bikes, but TBF, there’s a lot of beginners on these trails; a lot of people turn up, rent a big full sus, FF lid and pressure suit and have their first go riding a DH trail, so you’ll come round a big berm and find a couple having a chat in the middle of the trail.C’est la vie.

It’s good to hear from someone who can make a direct comparison.

So, if your kids could easily ride all the reds at Deux alpes, had no problem clearing an 8 ft table, had a bike suited for the terrain, had loads of experience of riding European bike parks etc, etc. Would the trip to whistler justify the extra cost?

You need to realise Whistler bike park has some of the best trail builders in the world, 12 I think, working fulltime on the mountain. Even when the trails are shit kicked from Crankwork they’re in way better condition than anything is the Alps. Stay with Bearback and you’ll have the time of your life. It’s Disneyland on bikes.

It’s good to hear from someone who can make a direct comparison.

So, if your kids could easily ride all the reds at Deux alpes, had no problem clearing an 8 ft table, had a bike suited for the terrain, had loads of experience of riding European bike parks etc, etc. Would the trip to whistler justify the extra cost?

Yes.

Well after all that, I had finally decided that it would probably worth it. Spoke to my son last night and…he dosnt want to go next year!

He wants to go to Valnord for the world cup! Danny Hart better not be injured or he will be gutted.

I’ll go!