On the Shoulders of Giants -The Story of the PEAK 2 PEAK Gondola (2011) - Whistler Museum Archives

[Music] [Music] a landscape as big as this demands a different way of thinking at least that's the way Whistler Blackcomb sees things it's no ordinary place and it inspires a level of innovation of interaction of performance that's beyond the ordinary this is what it's like to play on a different level altogether because on a scale this big you can't help but see things differently [Music] [Applause] [Music] this is the story of the lengths that Whistler Blackcomb went to make an epic mountain experience even better [Music] [Music] in the mountains we get a glimpse of Mother Nature and all her glory for changing moves demand that we bring our best game all our ingenuity comes into play in response to the demands of the environment it's always been this way the Squamish in lille one people flourished in this landscape through an inventiveness and a willingness to adapt their tools and technologies over time as if they were having a long conversation with nature in time others joined the dialogue [Music] loggers trappers gold cedars pioneers big dreamers and the big mountain people all rising up turning their ingenuity to whatever challenges the landscape threw down even the simple task of getting from point A to point B in this land of rivers and glaciers required a certain creative daring its simple call and response Hugh Smythe has been part of that evolving conversation as a young ski patroller in 1966 and as president of intro west mountain resorts hugh always had a different way of looking at things lesser mountain started in february of 1966 and the whole mountain the gondola the red chair and the tootsie bars was built for approximately 750,000 dollars back way back then forty-two years ago we had a fellow parking cars on a horse his name was Tex and it was quite a challenge for him to get the cars parked with people all racing for the ticket office to get their $1 discount off of probably what was a six dollar lift ticket in those days since the start in 1966 the technology has changed significantly the first gauntlet that we had you push the cars around and pushed them out and everything was done by hand there was no grooming you know no grooming machines so it was all kind of off-piste skiing so to speak we slew story has been about breaking the mold from the outset when you look back at whistlers past this place has really been about innovation and breaking new ground I mean this whole place started with an Olympic dream more than 40 years ago and if you look it back at what's happened since then I mean the village the terrain parks the festivals events hotdogs in the amount of energy and creation in this place is amazing and one of my favorites innovators over those years was Jim McConkey he was one of the first famous free skiers he you know showed us but you could actually go out and go heli-skiing mystical journey town just passing time [Music] and we have to charge $50 for three runs it was considered expensive but people really enjoyed it they loved to do it fabulous terrain Oh I really enjoyed it and I thought it was good to promote Whistler to get it going so people would see the vastness of the skiing around here [Music] these little kids and trust No Jim McConkey knew that the ultimate ski experience was in the high outline Whistler Blackcomb began to open up this terrain expanding access over the years into high alpine Falls and chutes they knew that once you get high you want to stay up high you want the Alpine experience to last so the next step was to make it easier to stay up there above it all [Music] bridging the gap between the two mountains bridging the Alpine experience from winter into summer was the next evolution the visionaries of Whistler Blackcomb have dreamed for years connecting Whistler mountain and Blackcomb mountain by coming up with the CES system we have now the technology to realize the dream the dream of connecting Whistler and Blackcomb mountain the peak-to-peak gondola was the next step in the progression putting this left together and building it was a very big deal was a huge decision to get to the point of saying yes let's go do it the project was moved through the through the hierarchy of our company by Dave Brown he did a great job of making sure we got the finance he got the support that we needed the technology the cost and the business rationale were all huge challenges but we knew that if we really wanted to take our mountain experience to the next level we really had to do something much bigger and that was to link the two mountains from the top Wendall Meier developed the three s technology which then made it feasible to link the two mountains we knew it just had to be done we spent three years crunching numbers working through the logistics and selling the dream to our shareholders finally on April 17th 2007 with the Olympics just around the corner we announced to the world that it was going to happen by joining the two alpine areas of Whistler and Blackcomb mountain this gondola will double the access to the high alpine terrain and truly revolutionize the guest experience in summer and in winter just because it had never been done before was no reason to hesitate after all most things that have made was so great had never been done before the hard work in the mountains is done by the ones who go first by those who break trail scope the line make the impossible real [Music] it's Whistler it's its new ideas and not just new ideas but snowboarding when other resorts react should we let store when he happen Whistler was embracing snowboarding it's coming up with things like the first ever snowboard cross started on black home back in the 80s and now it's an Olympic sport I think of innovators like Mike Douglas and Worcester local and a true pioneer in the twin tip ski he showed ski world a new direction I mean I think about mountain biking we had the trails we had the lifts we had this population of nut bars living here with mountain bikes so they put them all together they created the best mountain bike park in the world and bike park builders all around the world are dropping in to Whistler to see what are we gonna do next [Music] thinking of Whistler guys the legends of of Eric biota and Trevor Peterson who were taking first descents to a whole new level the opened a door for skiers and riders to a newfound freedom to realize you know what anything is possible yeah when I first came to Westeros about 1984 the first thing I did was look up at amazement at the I'll find and it's not unbelievable and you know I had to go there so that winner this he spent all the winter hiking and ski touring around and skiing up in the Alpine above the existing lists at the time and not too far in the near future they started to put lifts in and you know I think they realized that that's where the people wanted to be in ski was that beautiful high alpine I think a lot of areas in North America didn't really have that to offer and Whistler does [Music] when what was previously inconceivable is now not only conceived but executed it resets the bar indefinitely back in the day when we first started skiing Spanky's and whatnot it was pretty much a full day epic today you can ride a lyft Biscay to the top ski down and be back in a lift and do the full circle in less than an hour that's the ongoing story of Whistler a place where visionaries athletes Imagineers step up to the challenge of this terrain and move the progression a notch ahead [Music] well the mountains here at Whistler are a great drawing card for creative people and forward-thinking people and once you kind of get that critical mass it's like the place is unstoppable there's so much energy here and to be a part of that is really really something special [Applause] [Music] [Applause] a few years back I produced runway films Whistler was definitely really supportive of it and they built us our own huge jump on the top of the mountain and we had a helicopter follow us off the jump and it was so awesome because we had top snowboarders just destroying it and it was one of those moments where I was like is this really happening it was a dream come true it was just awesome to be able to see the progression in our sport at that moment [Music] - there here's your life straight [Applause] [Music] soon as something becomes normal feeling I'm always looking for the next challenge and right now I'm producing a web show called Salomon freeski TV and we're just telling ski stories and it's it's a creative outlet for me it's super fun when it comes to getting footage one of the things I like to do the most is shoot with my HD helmet cam and technology lets us kind of create these really cool angles and perspectives of skiing that that haven't been done really well before [Music] sometimes when I'm watching that helmet-cam footage it feels like I'm doing it again and that's the best feeling ever [Music] [Applause] it's never been done before let's do it it's more than concrete and steel that makes Whistler Blackcomb speak tepee gondolas so progressive pervy person is a very exciting project putting up the longest and largest lift in North America I've been doing construction 30 years roughly and I've done a lot of large projects but never ever did I ever think I would be doing something like this this is bigger than any of us this was an incredibly large project and one that you know it took everything we had to get it done we're faced with some pretty unique challenges up on the mountain here as you can see today we've got snow on the ground in yesterday morning when we came up here we had about 20 to 25 centimetres of fresh snow building this anywhere would be huge building this at the top of the mountain while it's open for skiing we've got a ski operation going on at the same time as we're trying to do the construction of the have the lift here and as well as moving lift terminals and that's creating some unique challenges for us and we work with those challenges every day to existing cheer lifts on Blackcomb had to be relocated to make room the Solar coaster actually was moved downhill like a like you move a house on a big dollies and we put a new pad in and just rolled it down the hill about 40 or 50 meters and that was it for this the huge milestone in in this project getting this Saturday I'll tell you over 3,000 cubic meters of concrete for lift platforms masts and columns had to be trucked up the mountains on access roads that had never seen that level of industrial use 400 tons of steel was needed to build lift hours we're at however three on the black home side right now it's one of two of the taller towers that each of them being 65 metres tall when they're complete and right now the guys are getting ready to set the next level of steel on top here and and that starts heading for the tower head which supports all the tower machinery and the support mechanisms for the ropes the crew that's here there over from Delft mogera vente there is group of Swiss guys there the crack-shot guys are directing this stuff working at Heights over 200 feet off the ground in all kinds of weather requires a certain comfort with exposure building their lifts on these mountains has always been a bit of a challenge back in the 60s when the Creekside gondola was built it was state-of-the-art technology and the hurdles that everybody had to overcome just to build that lift at the time they transported equipment up with talk horse they flew concrete and beer kegs underneath the helicopters and now we are we're looking at the peak-to-peak technology and it's amazing what we can accomplish [Music] 27 kilometers of steel cable was built in Switzerland and the only factory of the world capable of such a feat the cables was shipped through the Panama Canal and unloaded in Vancouver Washington as there were no dogs in Western Canada that could handle the 500 ton load the 11,000 mile journey continued by rail bringing the five schools weighing 90 tons each - whistling to meet the challenge of transporting these massive spools of the hill specially designed trucks and trailers have to be brought in from Quebec whenever somebody says a job is impossible that's when they called me to do it while this specialized trailer has 12 independent axles each of the axles steers independently so they're able to turn the wheels on the trailer to aid going around the corner so they were able to drive up the switchbacks without too much problem 90 times on the back of a truck was quite the challenge we had a 40 ton rock truck in front of the trailer and truck you had a 30 ton rock truck pushing from behind and we had to slide a large loader in as well to help us along the way and it was challenging to get the ropes to the top of the hill they are all safely at the top of the hill set in place and the top of mire Guerra vanta crews are starting to pull them across the valley it took 11 weeks to pull the 27 kilometers of cable across the valley more than 400 metres above the Fitzsimmons Creek the 3 s technology made it possible to span the 4.4 kilometre distance between Whistler and Blackcomb with only four towers since the cabins ride on two-track ropes there is greater stability on windy days and reduced power consumption in September 2008 the cabins were ready for their first historic crossing I know Mateus zu drown he jumped up on the carriage and rotor wrote across and I was very envious as I saw him coming in at Tower one on the Wooster side I sell an veeam of that first right across on the carriage it was a beautiful sunny day and quite an event for all of us the awesome scope with a landscape and the mountains through plenty of challenges in the project but it also made people transcend themselves and accomplish something that will forever be over myself and everyone who's worked on it will be very very proud and now we get to turn it over to the public and let them be as proud as we are it's pretty overwhelming there's 10 million people in here ladies get in the gondola everyone's excited it's a great day we made it made it on time on budget and here we are today going across on schedule oh the whole team did such a great job and now we can see what we have done I've been in this ski a business my whole life and today is one of those moments that I'll have in my heart for the rest of my life [Music] it was really exciting what to get him to keep gondola for the first time I mean it was like really impressive really beautiful is he getting so high on top of the mountains and you can also pick out some really cool powder runs that didn't used to be there I mean my friends used to fight so much on a good powder day if we're gonna ride Whistler a ride back home and now you can write gold medals in one day [Music] [Applause] [Music] it gives me all the terrain it's all available to me now I mean it if the if there's clouds over here I can be over there in 11 minutes just like that that's the classic whisper move you come up with Whistler get the Morning Sun and as it breaks on black on you get slide on the peak-to-peak and then you're basking in the Sun over and seven thousand the peak-to-peak story is about challenge as a thrill of rising to meet it but the challenge thrown down by a landscape that is so inherently demanding of our ingenuity is also a demand for our humility and our stewardship because it is not just our playground and our testing ground it is our habitat my mental issues were a big part of our decision-making along the way as big as the left is it has a very small footprint two terminals four towers only two of the towers had to have new developments in areas that weren't already developed the access to one of those towers we have choice of going through a bear habitat or going a little further around we took the choice of not distributing the bear habitat and avoiding that and the electrical consumption to run the list actually is quite likely so less than a normal you know high-speed quadrant the gondola like all technology is a tool a vehicle that opens up possibilities for hardcore riders from opposite sides of the valley to meet for a run together and for skiers of all abilities to stay above the clouds and experience the high outline on both mountains in one day but it also elevates Whistler Blackcomb to a year-round experience doubling the number of summer hiking trails and opening up endless possibilities to all he enjoyed the ride because she can see revi ski and she can tell her friends she wasn't the same going to land on the same mountain even though she doesn't ski the peak-to-peak gondola is the latest chapter from a place rich in stories of technological innovation and daring but it wasn't about breaking records although records were made it's just so smooth and to travel from here over there in 11 minutes in comfort out of the weather and the scenery and it blows my mind it wasn't just about having another reason to celebrate although it was a pretty good party it wasn't about being a daredevil although it attracted them - it's really about sharing the mountain experience I think really on Whistler and Blackcomb being the two biggest mountains in North America you have to enjoy the best of both worlds and without left.this the accessibility is unreal the best of both worlds are at year literally ski tips with the peak-to-peak gondola we went first and opened the door to infinite possibilities it's not just about an 11-minute gondola ride it's a chance to stand on the shoulders of giants [Music] you [Music] [Music] try the 9th of July today that I played it tonight in the sky cuz I never wanna be the thing you hear many say like I put up and I stood up if I never did it anyway living day to day and there goes better finish a feeling homeless always looking for change change your mind my mind is gone I wanna back train keep my life on the track [Music]

Channel: Whistler Museum

Views: 10,568

Keywords: PEAK 2 PEAK, Whistler, Engineering, Gondola, Whistler Mountain, Blackcomb Mountain

Id: D4ocXplEtnI

Length: 24min 48sec (1488 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 24 2020