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Crystal ball gazing — Roger McCarthy on the future of snowsports

"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible." - Iconoclast Frank Zappa I love summers at Whistler.
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"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."

- Iconoclast Frank Zappa

I love summers at Whistler. Road cycling and mountain biking, sailing and paddling, climbing, hiking, swimming, running — this place offers a veritable cornucopia of outdoor-activities. And there's no reason to think we can't grow the business even more. Our lakes, our trails, our own exuberance about playing outside: these are all qualities that make Sea-to-Sky such a compelling destination in summertime.

Ah, but there's the rub. For Whistler is but one compelling summer spot in a long list of very attractive sunny-place getaways. And it's not even ranked near the top.

Which, as we all know, is not the case during snow-season. Winter is when this place really comes into its own. When it separates itself from its mountain-resort competitors by the sheer magnitude of its physical surroundings. Whistler, in wintertime, is the ne plus ultra of the North American snowsport experience. It's the biggest. The baddest. The bucket-list leader. That's why people travel from so far and stay for so long... and spend so much money when they're here.

Seems that when it comes to sliding on snow in wintertime, size (of mountain, of snowfall, of length of season) does matter after all...

Alas, size alone can't reverse the decline in the global snowsport market. Baby boomers are increasingly dropping out and millenials haven't fully committed; conventional ski schools are next to useless at turning beginners into enthusiasts; and most mountain operators are still stuck in a 1990s business model. Politics, economics, demographics — they're all pointing in the wrong direction. Oh yeah, and climate change is looming over us like a big, wet (and warm) blanket.

And yet. And yet. Whistler keeps defying the odds. And people keep coming to play on our slopes. Especially when those slopes are covered in that thick white carpet we fondly refer to as Coast Mountain pud. Which begs the question: Are we merely riding the final wave of our past glories? Or is there something here at Whistler — something special and unique — that might hold the seeds to sustained success?

Which really got me thinking. Especially after hearing the howls of indignation from locals over Whistler's "invasion" by urban hordes during the Victoria Day weekend. Hmm. Suddenly the solution seemed so obvious to me. Why had no one else in town figured it out?

We already know how big the yield-disparity is between summer and winter visitor (huge!). We also know how well-heeled (and how willing to part with their shekels) those winter guests are compared to their warm-weather counterparts. To me, the answer is simple. We need to extend our snowplay season.

Say what? Hear me out. What if Tourism Whistler (and WB's marketing mavens) focused all their efforts on celebrating and promoting "sliding-on-snow" for the next few years? What if that became the resort's first-priority message? What if we took up the challenge of tweaking the global snowsport story and making it relevant for a 21st century audience again? Not just Whistler's story. Or WB's story. Or the story of our hotel rooms and bars and restaurants. But the whole grand shebang.

I'm talking deviation from the norm here. Radical departure from conventional communications methods. I'm talking singing the multitudinous virtues of sliding-on-snow from every rooftop and parapet available. Loudly. Passionately. In summer. In winter. In fall and/or spring. I'm talking empowering Whistler's keenest riders to become spokespeople for the snowplay cause as well. Not to mention harnessing the power of social media to get the word out too.

Crazy, right? Like a fox...

I know. I know. You're not convinced. Still, let me give you a quick illustration of what I have in mind. Consider our ill-starred Victoria Day weekend. What would happen, I wonder, if we scheduled a "radically-new" Freeride Film Festival that weekend instead — and invited to Whistler all the top directors (and their hard-riding crews) from around North America... and even the world? You know, turn the festival's gala banquet into a big pig roast on top of Whistler Mountain, with the weekend's best films showcased at the Roundhouse, and a crazy party after that?

Interesting concept, no? I'd even be willing to bet that after a year or two, there wouldn't be many empty rooms in town for the urban rowdies to rent. You?

Still, for many the question remains: Is it worth it? Will commercial snowplay still be around in 25 years to make such efforts pay off? Whistler council member Roger McCarthy is a believer. In a recent article for Outside Magazine, the former ski executive offered his vision for the future of the business. But it's a future with a twist. "Twenty years ago," he wrote in Outside, "the ultimate conquest for a ski area was to pound a lift into a peak. In 25 years, backcountry access will be more important." (my italics)

That's not all he wrote of course. But the main gist of his argument is that the evolution of AT gear over the last few years has created a new paradigm that resort operators are still struggling to digest. For example, Roger wonders, "if in 25 years, terrain parks will hold on to the level of traffic they see today." He thinks not. "The focus," he contends, "will be free skiing (and exploring) new frontiers." And later, he remarks: "What's interesting (in all of this) is that, really, less is more."

Setting aside the sad fact that WB is still busily pounding lifts into peaks (Oh Harmony, where art though), Roger's vision for the future fits rather well with what's been happening in the Sea to Sky corridor of late. Read: backcountry explosion! Clearly, the man has his fingers on the pulse. So I decided to give the former Whistler Mountain pro patroller a call.

Roger has a seriously good gig going. "In the space of 18 days last winter," he says, "I skied Trois Vallées, Les Deux Alpes, Val Cenis in the Vanoise, Vail, Beaver Creek, Aspen, Snowmass and Whistler." He smiles. "I'd say I'm a lucky guy but the truth is that this is my job now; I get paid to guide ski business people around the world's top resorts to see and experience new technologies and procedures."

And then he kicks into gear. "Let me tell you a story," he says. "When I was a kid, my family belonged to Tongariro Ski Club. It was around 1960, I was all of ten years old and we were spending the night in the club cabin — a rough little building high up on the slopes of Mt. Ruapehu that slept 36 people or so. It was a cold, stormy night, you know, and we were all huddled around the fire trying to get as warm as we could." He pauses. Takes a long sip of coffee. "Suddenly," he continues, "the doors fly open. And this ice-encrusted character walks in with his headlamp still burning bright." Another pause. He laughs. "Well, that was Sir Edmund Hillary (the first European to conquer Mt. Everest), and I can't remember whether he was on his way up Mt. Ruapehu or on his way back down. But it didn't matter. There was absolutely no ceremony made over his arrival. Everyone simply referred to him as 'Ed'..."

He looks at me for a moment. "You know what I'm getting at, right? That long-ago interaction, to me, is what ski culture is all about." Another smile. "I think it was that night in the hut that I became hooked to the magnetism of the mountains."

It's a subject Roger feels the snowsports business needs to focus on more. "In recent years," he says, "we all went high-tech and high-value. Now we have to increase the 'touch' factor. I mean, it's incumbent that snowplay maintains its texture and depth. After all, the 'industrial ski experience' is a relatively new phenomenon." He sighs. "And we know how alienating that experience can be. Instead, we need to create more — and better — connections with our guests. We need to personalize the ski experience as much as we possibly can — and by 'personalize' I don't mean hiring people in red jackets to hand out trail maps. That's nice, but it's not enough."

In fact, it goes way further than that. "We spent the last thirty years devising new ways to speed skiers up the mountain," he explains. "And we got really good at that. I mean, in some cases now, lifts can carry 4,000 people per hour at a rate of 1,200 feet a minute! And that's seriously fast." He stops. Takes a breath. "But you know, the magic of the mountains only truly becomes manifest when you slow down." Another breath. "In fact, I believe it's one of the secrets to our future success." Now he's laughing outright. "It's ironic, you know. We spent the last three decades speeding riders up. And now we're probably going to spend the next three decades slowing them down again."

One final thought. "You and I both know," he says "how special it is to stand on a high mountain ridge with the snow falling, and the wind howling in your face and knowing that in spite of all the tech you are wearing Mother Nature is telling you 'You don't belong here!'. I love that! There's really no other feeling like it." He stops talking. Shrugs. "Now all we have to do is share that message with the world."