Since the world's attention is turning this way in the next little while, I thought I'd offer some background for those of you not fortunate enough to inhabit this part of our globe. (the unofficial version)
I thought it might be worthwhile since my counter tells me I've had recent visitors from: the U.S., Honduras, Ireland, France, Venezuela, Hungary, the Philippines, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, the U.K., South Africa, Korea, Greece, India, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Russia, the Netherlands, Italy and Namibia.
So for now we'll start with
Part One - Whistler
On NBC, you'll probably hear reference to "Whistler Village" but it's rarely called anything but Whistler in this part of the world. The population of Whistler is officially 10,000 (or so) but during ski season there can be a lot more people there.
Whistler's development really got going in the early 80s when Nancy Greene (Olympic gold and silver medalist in Grenoble in '68, plus a number of world cup titles) and her husband began flogging it as they themselves opened a resort there. There was a fair bit of government money that went into the development of Whistler in the 70s and 80s, much to the chagrin of other mountains in the province which were not being tax-funded and were struggling during some years with fairly bad ski conditions.
In fact, Whistler was offered the 1976 Winter Olympics when Denver, originally scheduled to host them, declined due to financial issues, but the government at the time didn't want to be saddled with potential financial disaster (the '76 Montreal Olympics were clearly showing that to be a distinct possibility) so they were held in Innsbruck, Austria that year.
Whistler is a playground for the rich. It is not generally a mountain that those on a budget can enjoy during peak season. Three or four-day lift passes for adults this time of year run $278, compared to Mount Washington where a full day adult pass is $61 or a half-day is $46. Mount Washington is here on the island and actually has more snow than Whistler. Silver Star in the Okanagan is $71 per day, and of course, Aspen, Colorado is generally more.
But it's not lift tickets that hurt as much as the overall cost of staying at Whistler. For Mt. Washington, there are reasonable accomodations available at the bottom of the mountain in the Comox Valley, but with Whistler, if you want to get in a decent day's skiing, you pretty much need to stay there for a night at least. That means if you have an AAA membership, you can get a nightly rate at the Delta hotel of $360. (yes, the Canadian dollar is worth less, if you qualify for that discount it will only be $343 U.S.
Those who live there don't need to worry about such problems; if you want to buy a condo to enjoy Whistler every ski season, it will run you about a half-million for a 800 square ft. condo:
http://www.propertiesinwhistler.com/whistler-homes/index.php?&page=3
Of course, during the Olympics, posted hotel rates are meaningless. There will be no vacancies; there haven't been for quite a while. Those who have even tiny rooms for rent can make a killing as people scramble for accomodations once they've managed to luck into Olympic tickets.
Tickets. That's a story for next time.
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