Whistler Warnings Or Dangers

A separate pass is now required for entrance into the area and helmets are mandatory.
For riders under 19 years of age, the release agreement must be co-signed by a parent or legal guardian.
The photo ID pass is available from Guest Relations for a $15 fee and will be valid for the entire season.

It is illegal for you to bring your own bottle into a resto and have them serve it. Hence the restos pretty much get to charge what they want of good bottles of wine. In fact, even mediocre bottles of wine are generally priced at a price that can only be said to be a "rip off".

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Three skiers skiing under the PEAK TO PEAK GONDOLA beyond the Ski Area Boundaries. If caught they will loose their ski pass and may be banned for life. Quite a number of skiers/snowmobiliers have been killed in avalanches in the 2008/09 season doing stunts like this.

Highway 99 from Vancouver to Whistler has been deemed North America's most deadly road. Not that it is bad, it is the traffic that is bad: When the crowds head up or down from Whistler for weekend stints and drivers overtake in utter, crazy eagerness to get there soooon - the undertaker is at the nearest.
To widen the road in critical places and put in physical lane dividers in time for the Olympics, major road workd is going on. Juist be aware of the potential delays. But shorter delays than at the undertaker....

We did not have chains on our car, we were running late for our flight back to L.A. , and there were some appointments in the next 12 hours that can not be missed, in L.A.

We pushed our time to the last possible minute, to get more skiing time. Not quite smart, because it was snowing on the road, and we did not have chains. The scariest part was knowing that there was not a lot of traction between your car's wheels and the road.

Many people said the road to Whistler is dangerous! My image is NOT 99! (you must double-click the image to see all of it) The real road is a little better and paved. This is a shot of the sheer rock face of a mountain that looms up next to the highway.

99 is mostly two lane with few opportunities to pass. The road can be treacherous, especially if its wintertime. Skiers drive too fast and pick up too much speed when descending. Accidents are frequent. On my second trip (just before I made the drive) two were killed as they lost control on only wet roads! It held up traffic for several hours.....

They are improving the roads for the coming 2010 Olympics so there is constantly construction work going on with widening and improving the roads. Unmarked police cars will get you if you go much over the speed limit. I saw this happen.
Also, driving 99 through Vancouver is challenging and slow. It is easy to miss a sign and not make a turn as 99 zig-zags through downtown. Traffic is bad..... expect one hour, at times. The best I did was 25 minutes to get through Vancouver and back on open road.

First and foremost, you must know, understand, and follow the Skier's Responsibility Code. Don't be an A-HOLE! Blackcomb Mountain is the more challenging of the mountains. Whistler is no cake walk either. If you can ski blacks, then fine. If you can't, then don't. People aren't impressed with side slipping the entire trail. If you're not quite at the level where you can ski a black with ease, but you're getting there, then be careful. Some sections of the resort are remote and surely don't get the kind of Ski Patrol visits that others get. If you ski by yourself, then be smart about it.

Okay, I generally thought that swedes are fun nice, fun, snow-loving people. Not unlike Canadians. To set the scene, the gang was at Tommy's and we met these two Swedish girls...they seemed nice enough at first. Fast forward to us walking home in the snow after copious amounts of beer and jaegermeister. There was maybe 9 or 10 of us total (Swedes included) and we get in a playful snowball fight (primarily 4 of us none of them Swedish). One of my buddies throws an errant snowball and it strikes one of the Swedish ladies in the posterior area. At first she seems calm and then she just snaps, she loses it. She's going off in Swdish throwing in the occasional English swear. I overheard her yell "...small ***!"...charming. We were shocked and appauled and broke away from the pack before it escalated into an international incident.