Whistler Blackcomb ski resort opens tube park and for summer skiing

Whistler Blackcomb’s Horstman Glacier has re-opened to allow summer skiing and riding until Sunday, July 25th. For the first time ever, Whistler Blackcomb will also be opening a tube park in the alpine on Whistler Mountain as snow allows. In addition the resort has announced that following its record breaking snowfall this winter, there is still more than 50 inches in some places making snowshoeing possible.

With another 20cm (eight inches) of snow falling on Whistler in the past few days, the resort’s snowfall tally since it opened for the season last autumn has passed 1,430 centimetres or 47 feet, surpassing the 2006/07 record of 1,416 centimetres or 46 feet, making this season officially the second snowiest on record at the famous Canadian resort.

Quebec’s Mont-Sainte-Anne is running its annual Spring Madness Festival through to April 25th this year. The Festival brings five successive fun packed week-ends in which live music shows, friendly competitions, BBQs, sun drenched terraces and outdoor hot tubs are the order of the day. A special low priced Spring lift pass is also on offer.

Winter plans to capitalise on worldwide publicity from the Olympic Games, which they estimate were viewed by more than half the world’s population, by opening up several of their Olympic competition venues to the paying public next winter. The Whistler Sliding Centre which hosted bobsleigh, luge and skeleton events will open a public ride program next season for visitors who want to try bobsleigh and skeleton on the Olympic track.

Sun Peaks resort in Canada’s British Columbia is one of many leading North American ski areas that cease snow operations each April when the snow still lies metres deep on the mountain. The resort likes to finish its season with a bit of fun, and stages its Spring Festival on April 10 – 11 which includes dummy’s flying down the mountain, skiing across a pond of slush and a race to ring a bell.

Sun Peaks in British Columbia has opened its new terrain park and announced not only news snow features but also a range of events through the season. The park contains over nine acres of terrain features and jumps for skiers and snowboarders including a new a 20 foot flat box for rail riders, two new 16 foot corrugated culverts and a 30 foot straight rail.

Andrea Fischbacher ran away with the women’s Olympic super-G crown in Whistler on Saturday as American Lindsey Vonn’s dreams of a golden double turned to bronze. The 24-year-old took full advantage of a tight and tricky course set by her own coaches to hand Austria a first Alpine skiing gold of the Games with a winning time of one minute 20.14 seconds.

Switzerland’s Didier Defago left his more fancied team-mates in the shade to win the showcase men’s Olympic Alpine skiing downhill at Whistler. The 32-year-old, who had failed to crack the top 20 in two previous Olympic downhills, blasted down the hill with a winning time of one minute 54.31 seconds to become the first Swiss winner in 22 years.