It’s funny how bears and bikers live in a parallel universe at Whistler Mountain Bike Park, both are emerging from their winter dens groggy and disheveled. Both bears and bikers await the uncapping of the ski runs from their winter coats. For bears it means clover sprouting out of the moist soil signaling lunch, while bikers anticipate jumps sprouting on trails signaling launch. The two species frequent the same terrain vaguely aware of each other’s’ presence but happy to offer the other only a passing glance. The two are watched carefully by biologists and bean counters respectively both hoping their subjects will grow in size and number each season.

As we await the arrival of those first tracks in the mud we tick down the final few weeks before opening. Snowcats will be unleashed next week to push spring thaw along a little faster. Next come the mini-excavators which will drop into A-line and Crank it Up first this season scooping the remnants of snow off the trails. A few days behind the machines the Trail Crew follow cleaning up after the machines and managing drainage as the snow melts and needs somewhere to go. The machines then make their second trips down rebuilding the berm and jumps that give these bike trails their iconic character and reason for being the most ridden tracks in the biking world.

Build up that new bike or lube the old one, this won’t take long and we’ll all be back where it all began, slapping fives at the bottom of Fitz.

See you there!

BF