Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Bike Park opens Saturday with new features

Garbanzo zone trails, jump park, beginner park new for this year

The Whistler Mountain Bike Park continues to be a work in progress, getting bigger, more diverse and arguably better every season as visitor records are shattered. This year promises more of the same as the bike park gets set to grow in several new directions – even crossing over to Blackcomb.

The Bike Park opens this Saturday, April 30, with most of the trails below Olympic Station. Crews have been hard at work over the last couple of weeks grooming the trails, and getting the bikercross course and Boneyard built at the base of the mountain.

It’s a big job this year – although there wasn’t much snow at the lower elevations this winter, the heavy rains in the fall and November did more damage than a slowly melting snowpack.

This year the crews hope to get the Boneyard ready as early as possible, allowing crews to plant grass and improve the look before the start of the Crankworx mountain bike festival.

Once the lower park is up and running, crews will get to work on several new projects for beginners, intermediates and experts.

For beginners, the bike park is expanding to Blackcomb with the Magic Park under the Magic Chair. This park will include two trails for basic beginners, a contoured trail like B-Line and a singletrack trail through the trees.

"We’ve been talking about this for a while as something that was needed," explains Rob McSkimming, vice president of business development for Whistler-Blackcomb.

"One of the things we’ve always wrestled with in the bike park is the perception. It has an extreme look and feel to it, and we definitely get the pro riders out there in some pretty large numbers, which is great, but at the same time it’s quite intimidating to your average Joe.

"Look up at the park from the bottom, the bikercross, the Boneyard, the drops and you think ‘oh my God, these people are insane, I can’t possibly do that.’ All the people in the lift lines have big helmets and big bikes, and it probably scares a few people off.

"But when you get up into the park it’s not always that extreme. There’s a full range of riding that’s available, and that’s what we want to get across with the Magic Park."

With only 300 feet of vertical, compared to 1,100 to Olympic Station, the trails will be made with beginners and children in mind, says McSkimming. "This is the right amount of vertical for riders to get used to it," he added.

The cost is under $10 per day, and riders can upgrade their tickets to ride the main park if they choose.

Construction will begin on the new Magic Park trails and on upgrading the Magic Chair within the next few weeks and should be open in June.

Kona Jump Farm

Another new bike park expansion for 2005 is the Kona Jump Farm, which will be built beside The Platter moving sidewalk lift outside of Olympic Station. The Jump Farm, which will be designed by jumping legend John Cowan, will include 40 to 50 hits built for rhythm and flow, as well as a full learning progression from small tables to huge gaps.

"I think in combination with what the municipality has done, this is going to be a real dirt jump destination," said McSkimming. "As far as I know it’s also a first – I don’t think there’s a lift-assisted jump park anywhere else in the world. The carpet is about 600 feet long and the grade is about perfect for jumping.

"Hopefully it will not only attract people with mountain bikes, but BMX riders as well."

The idea to build the Jump Farm came from consulting local riders, he added.

"Certainly we are fortunate to have a lot of the top riders in the whole industry here, and we lean on those guys pretty heavily when it comes to our plans and developments for the park, and this is definitely one of those things that has come out of the meetings we’ve had with our key rider groups. It fits in with the whole popularity of Dirt Merchant and A-Line, our jumping trails, as well as the whole convergence with mountain biking, dirt jumping, BMX, all those different styles."

The Jump Farm is expected to be completed by mid-June.

Freight Train added to Garbanzo

Last year the bike park expanded into the Garbanzo Zone with five new trails, while almost tripling the vertical of the park to 3,400 feet.

The Garbanzo Zone will continue to be developed this year with the completion of Freight Train, a winding eight kilometre doubletrack trail with jumps, berms and other high speed features in the same vein as A-Line – just twice as long, with more than twice as many features.

It will be completed section by section as the snow melts, with sections linking to other Garbanzo trails. It likely won’t be finished when the Garbanzo Zone opens on June 26, but the goal is to have it completed by mid-July.

A lot of effort will be used to improve and repair the existing Garbanzo trails, but there are no other major Garbanzo additions planned for this summer, other than a few short trails linking completed sections.

Freight Train will eventually link to A-Line, creating a top-to-bottom ride.

Double black trails

For hardcore riders, the bike park is introducing ‘pro line’ trails similar to the highest level terrain park on Blackcomb – you’ll need a special pass and to sign an additional waiver to access them. "What we’ll be doing is opening up more extreme terrain that can be accessed through a special pass. They will be newly built trails, and we should have some of those ready to go by the end of June," said McSkimming.

Days, hours and pricing

From the opening on April 30 to the grand opening on May 21, the Whistler Mountain Bike Park will be open on weekends only from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Park will open seven days a week starting May 21, with Extended Play on Saturdays only, from 3:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., until June 11.

After June 11, there will be Extended Play from Wednesday to Saturday, and on Sundays during long weekends. In late August Extended Play will finish at 7 p.m. as the days get shorter.

The price of a Bike Park pass has increased this year.

Single Day Tickets are $41 for adults, $36 for youth (13-17) and $21 for children aged 10-12. For winter season’s pass holders, tickets are $20 across the board.

Magic Chair Only passes will also be available for $9.34 for all ages, and passes can be upgraded for $31.75.

Extended Play tickets are $30 for adults, $25 for youth or $15 for children, or $13, $12 or $11 respectively for winter pass holders.

For full day tickets, including Extended Play, the prices are $50, $44, and $26, or $32, $30 and $28 for winter pass holders.

Bike Park seasons passes are $325 for all ages, or $275 for winter pass holders and WORCA members.

This year there will also be special deals with Edge Cards and special 7-Eleven tickets.

"The pass prices have been raised relatively – as prices have gone up the amount of money we’ve put into maintenance and trail development has also gone up. And by offering things like Edge Cards and tickets through 7-Eleven, you might even be able to ride quite a bit cheaper this year," said McSkimming.

All passes will be available through Whistler-Blackcomb Guest Relations.

There will be more competition this year with Grouse Mountain putting in a mountain bike park, and other mountains across the U.S. and B.C. following Whistler-Blackcomb’s example, but McSkimming believes it’s good for the industry.

"We’re certainly interested in continuing to develop new ideas and new experiences and that kind of thing, it’s something we’ve always done over time, and competition is definitely providing some motivation for us but that’s not necessarily a bad thing," he said. "In some ways it’s the more the merrier – it’s the evolution of park riding, and I think the best thing is for this to grow. Not to have it at three or four resorts across North America but to have it in 20, 50, 100. In the long run, the more people we get into it, over time it’s a good thing."

For more information on the Whistler Mountain Bike Park visit ww1.whistlerblackcomb.com/bike/.