After enough seasons I have to take my shoes off to get an accurate count, springtime in Whistler remains a disorienting mystery. It has something to do with what social scientists call imprinting. Growing up in the desert southwest, spring was the gentlest of seasons. It started in early February, when we could finally abandon the winter coats we’d worn for all of eight weeks, and lingered well into May at which point it gave way to the next season known locally as Stinkin’ Hot.
When I lived in Montreal — my first experience with what Canadians like to call Real Winter, often accompanied by the most genteel bit of chest thumping — spring started in February as well. Unfortunately it lasted only about three days, often over a weekend. The fabled thaw of February would melt mountains of snow. Downtown intersections would become giant, grey-brown Slurpees as old newspapers and the excrement of three quarters of a million dogs plugged sewer grates like so much hair at the bottom of a huge shower.
By the time Monday rolled around, the errant spring-like conditions were nowhere to be found, having usually been replaced by an Arctic front and –40° temperatures. While you no longer needed waders to traverse intersections, ice axes and crampons helped immensely, as they were transformed from distasteful to dangerous, frozen solid from curb to curb. As Christmas was to retailers, so the Thaw of February was to towing and auto body shops, an annual event they all counted on to see them through to the Demolition Derby of summer holidays still many long months away.
But there is no parallel in my life to spring in Whistler. Spring in Whistler means you can ski powder in the morning, get a sunburn that’ll land you at the medical centre in the afternoon and be mosquito food just before the sun goes down. And while it seems impossible it’s almost over — this best ski season we’ve had since last year — the signs of spring are everywhere.
Most notable among the returning birds, melting ice, lengthening daylight and two-wheeled mayhem along the Valley Trail, the World Ski and Snowboard Festival is Whistler’s inarguable harbinger of spring. It’s the starting gun in the annual race to strip down, feel the sun on your skin, dance to the music and find your summer groove. While there are those who have been through it 12 times before, who verbally masturbate about it losing some of its vitality and direction, about it being co-opted by its TW-Borg owners, and even people who grouse about the corporate imprimatur that keep most of its events and all of its concerts FREE, I can only say, in the best of Canadian spirits, take off, eh?
Tell it to the SRO crowd at last Saturday’s Big Air or the sun-drenched spectators at the Orage Masters. Tell it to the hooting, cheering, jeering crowd at Icon Gone, a festival newcomer. Explain how much better it was back in the day to the packed house at the 72-Hour Filmmaker’s Showdown or the long-ago sold-out house at tonight’s Photographer’s Showdown. This dog still hunts.
And the dogs haven’t even had their day yet. Tell it to the people and pooches who’ll be strutting their stuff Saturday at the oh-so-Whistler DogFest. In a town full of free-range dogs, this event is as close as we’re ever likely to come to a dog show. Fitting, when you think about it. Dog shows, after all, are strange gatherings where tragically cloned, primped and pampered animals display the effects of overly severe toilet training. Their dogs are something to see as well. By contrast, the DogFest will feature a bum-sniffing conga line of real animals competing in real dog events: catch the Frisbee, slobber and drool, run away, steal treats and hump the leg.
And in its third incarnation, this year’s World Backcountry Freeride Jam has so much vitality they’re hosting a new race. People with acute distortions about what exactly constitutes fun will be racing UP Whistler Mountain. Now, you may say there’s nothing new about that. They raced up the mountain last year, ironically besting the time it used to take to get up the mountain using the old Creekside gondola, Olive and Red chairs. But this year, the race is between skiers and snowshoers. The smart money is on some Skinhead to take the grand prize… but I wouldn’t dismiss a possible upset by a Bigfoot.
Organizer Jayson Faulkner’s bringing just about everyone of any importance to the North Face Backcountry Village this weekend, which means you’ll be able to take a spin on some of the best backcountry and tele gear there is and, if you haven’t tasted this addictive mode of travel, sign up for a tour and learn what it’s all about.
If you’re already addicted to skiing without the genteel assistance of chairlifts, check out the fundraiser Friday at the Cinnamon Bear for the Keith Flavelle Hut. More huts mean fewer tent nights and that ain’t all bad.
And with luck, the Chairlift Revue will be back Sunday evening to close the festival with a bizarre look at the kinds of situations you can find yourself in by simply choosing to ride the chair up the mountain instead of racing up under your own power. While my raging paranoia about everything getting pulled together at the last minute is erupting like an awakened volcano, I have great faith in producer, Michele Bush’s assurances that all successful theatre companies wait until the day of the performance to begin rehearsals. When has she ever misled me? That was a rhetorical question… I hope.
The numbers won’t be in for a month or so but if this is a festival in decline, it’s the kind of decline just about every other ski area in the world would like to experience. There were so many people stuffing every square inch of sun-drenched patio in the village last Saturday that anyone showing up later than about 2:30 for après had to go to Pemberton or Dusty’s to find a place to sit in the sun and enjoy a refreshing beverage. The battle of the bands raged, hawkers hawked, people wandered and, from the chatter of the masses and the blissed-out looks on their faces, I’d be willing to wager most of them were having a joyous time.
So kick it out for another four days, people. Spring’s meant to be celebrated with wild abandon. You’re definitely holding up your end of the bargain.
