This isn’t exactly breaking news, but summer glacier skiing is done on Blackcomb’s Horstman Glacier. Arguably, it’s been done for a while now, but that hasn’t stopped summer camp operators from throwing a Hail Mary every year in hopes we’ll get one more season out of it.
We all know the cause. Our rapidly warming climate in the last 20 years has shrunk glaciers worldwide, not just on our local ski hill. After years of degradation of glacial ice (something even huge, snowy winters couldn’t slow down), the T-bar lifts on the Horstman have become more or less inoperable. Kudos to the Blackcomb groomers for building up a platform big enough to keep Showcase open for a few weeks this season. Let’s hope we see it in action a bit more next year.
The old Horstman T-bar seems like a lifetime ago, with Whistler Blackcomb finally deciding to remove it in 2021 after several seasons of inoperation. I do miss the Horstman—it was the only way to efficiently travel between Blackcomb’s best alpine areas of Spanky’s Ladder and Chainsaw Ridge. But that final pull up to the top station next to 7th Heaven felt like it got steeper and steeper every year, jettisoning kids and adults alike back down the slope. When it was in its prime, however, Horstman was the primary access to Secret Basin, Jersey Cream Bowl, and of course, the infamous Saudan Couloir.
I remember riding Glacier Express one winter back before the 2010 Olympics with a freestyle coach I worked with in the ski school. Horstman Glacier was still quite high then (not the steep and gullied rock garden it is now), and he was pointing at all the different areas where the various camps would be set up over the six-week summer glacier skiing season. Dave Murray race camps, Momentum mogul camps, Camp of Champions, a handful of others I can’t remember, plus a public lane for everyday folk to enjoy the novelty of summer turns. I can’t remember how many lanes he pointed out, but I was amazed at how much skiing they were able to fit on this one glacier. As the ice whittled down over the years, so did the operators. Momentum Camps held on the longest, booking and running camps all the way up to 2025, when Whistler Blackcomb made the call that operating skiing on the Horstman Glacier was no longer safe. Given the increasing amount of rocks poking out over the last 15 years, I can’t say anyone was surprised to hear the death knell.
I don’t have a personal connection to the Whistler summer glacier scene, but I’ve heard the stories. Thousands of kids travelling from all over the world to train for competition, or just enjoy a few weeks of fun hitting big jumps and learning new tricks. In the late ’90s to mid 2000s, freestyle coaches at these camps included members of the New Canadian Air Force; JP Auclair, JF Cusson, Mike Douglas, Shane Szocs and Vincent Dorion. A typical summer day for them would be to coach for a few hours, hit the jumps themselves (inventing new tricks along the way), maybe do some filming, then head back down the mountain for sake-fuelled mayhem at Sushi Village.
The legacy of these camps—and perhaps a small but significant blip on the geological lifetime of the glacier itself—will be the mark it left on the sport. Campers attended as kids, some returned to coach years later and some of those coaches even went pro. The glacier scene was a development pipeline for Canadian skiers, a convenient venue for summer training rather than the costly trips to the southern hemisphere or the glaciers in the European Alps.
Losing the Horstman Glacier wasn’t just a sad inevitability. It’s a wake-up call that skiing won’t be around forever. Canadian (and global) priorities have changed in the last few months with sovereignty and economic security leading the political narrative over the environment. If a warming planet can come for our summer skiing, it won’t be long before it starts wreaking havoc with winter as well. If the last few seasons are anything to go by, that’s already happening in a big way.
If you’re interested in helping stem the tide of shrinking winters and receding glaciers, consider joining Protect Our Winters Canada and lobby your elected officials for climate action.
Vince Shuley is doing less glacier travel these days. For questions, comments or suggestions for The Outsider, email [email protected] or Instagram @whis_vince.
