Years ago, when I worked as a ski instructor, there were fewer times throughout the year that I loved more than the week after the holidays had ended. It was usually around the fourth day of January when all the holiday skier visits had died down, the southbound procession of cars crawling their way back to work with a hefty New Year’s hangover. The post-holiday departure and a welcome end to 14 (or more) straight days of hospitality work indicated that it was now time for the locals to enjoy the mountain once more. No stressful schedules at your two or three jobs, no lift lines and no worries except how much energy you had to ski all that January pow.
Those were awesome years, but time has a tendency to give you the nudge to try things differently. That doesn’t necessarily mean leaving Whistler in the dust and trying to live somewhere else.
However, the hands of many folks are getting forced to do just that with the lack of housing and affordability in our beloved community. The dream of all-you-can-eat mid-week skiing is still very much alive for many in Whistler, some of who actually managed to balance that with flourishing careers. But when your ski squad slowly morphs towards a group of weekender dads/moms and your job no longer accepts the 20-centimetre rule as a valid reason for absence, skiing the weekend might be the only recourse.
And that’s OK. When you’ve had a season pass for the last 15 years or more, involuntarily substituting powder days for other stuff going on in your life gets (a bit) easier to stomach.
With this perspective, I’ve started to notice a few trends among local skiers. A few of these archetypes have already been well documented in ski town culture, but I’ll describe them here for your reading entertainment nonetheless.
The Vertical Optimizer
If you ain’t skiing downhill, you’re wasting time. This efficiency expert is constantly monitoring the lift-line wait times on the Epic Mix app, steering clear of long lift lines in favour of more and longer laps. Skiing on sunny or powder weekends presents a particular challenge for the Vertical Optimizer, who issues lots of recommendations for bypassing a busy Crystal Chair or Jersey Cream and sliding down to Excelerator instead. If Excelerator is busy, they may even go full controversial and ski down to Blackcomb Base, after the initial upload crowds have dispersed, of course. Friends will usually offer Vertical Optimizer a chill pill.
The Patient Powder Harvester
The Harvester is the proud opposite of the Vertical Optimizer, electing instead to get ahead of the crowds rather than avoid them altogether. This means lots of early starts to maximize mid-mountain powder before waiting it out near the front of the corral until the alpine lifts open. Once that alpine pow is harvested, they don’t mind heading home in place of waiting in line to ski in tracks. Quality over quantity is the mantra of the Harvester, and for this reason, they will often ski alone. Other people just don’t seem to get it.
The Social Slider
The Social Slider genuinely enjoys skiing, but never really sees the point if there aren’t friends around to enjoy it with. Busy weekends and snarled uploads don’t really matter, it just lends more time to on-mountain conversations. Coffee breaks are essential and après is non-negotiable, the latter providing even more opportunities to run into friends and acquaintances.
The Days Counter
The number of days skied per season is oft considered the benchmark of legit ski bums. The Days Counter won’t stop booting up in the mornings until they’ve hit triple digits on the season. Skiing through arctic outflows, Pineapple Expresses and unconscionably busy days on the hill, the Days Counter may well consider their number of days on the mountain more important than the quality or quantity of actual skiing.
Fair Weather Flyer
Leave the pow days for the keeners. Skiing in the sunshine with blue sky summit selfies is the name of the game. Since the Fair Weather Flyer lives on B.C.’s coast and not in California or Colorado, they ultimately ski fewer days than their peers.
The One and Done’r
Gondolas, not chair lifts. Umbrella Bar, not safety bar. The One and Done’r lives for the one long lap from the Roundhouse to the valley—after a tipple at Seppos Bar of course (or Umbrella Bar if you’re feeling fancy).
The Achievement Unlocker
The skiing equivalent of an obsessed gamer, the Achievement Unlocker has skied every run on the trail map, skied every line in Finestone and Hodder’s Advanced Guide to Whistler Blackcomb and even managed to tick off most (or all) of the achievements in the Whistler Blackcomb Live app before it was decommissioned and replaced with the aforementioned and inferior Epic Mix app.
What does January skiing reveal about you?
Vince Shuley identifies as a Patient Powder Harvester. For questions, comments or suggestions for The Outsider email [email protected] or Instagram
@whis_vince.
