The Skier's Guide to the Whistler Bike Park

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 20 years, you’ll probably know that the Whistler Bike Park is synonymous with the best lift-access downhill mountain biking on the planet.

The sport was born there, it came of age there, and now it’s absolutely thriving. As skiers, we take lift-access riding for granted, with a plethora of available options all across the globe. But when we’re looking to get our gravity fix during the warmer months, it’s often not so easy–that’s where the Whistler Bike Park comes in.

With Crankworx 2024 kicking into gear this week, I headed up to Whistler to check out what was going on–there was news of the new Fitzsimmons chairlift whisking riders up the mountain’s frontside in style and comfort, rumors of fresh trails all over the mountain, and some new on-mountain restaurants to enjoy. Here’s my take on how to enjoy 72 hours in Canada’s mountain biking paradise.

Since we had arrived very late the night before after driving up from Seattle, sleeping in and taking the morning easy was the name of the game–the Bike Park is open until 8pm, after all. The brand-new 8-person Fitzsimmons Express Chair opened partway through last ski season after the original quad chair was decommissioned in early 2023. The new chair rockets up to 5 riders and bikes per chair to the top of the Fitz Zone, vastly improving the uphill capacity.

Despite the news that the chair might be incompatible with some types of forks and fenders, I did not encounter any issues with that–just make sure your bike fits on one of the many practice clamps at the corral entrance. Our friends at BIKE Mag have a nice video that explains this .

I’m always a fan of easing into big days at the bike park, so a few blue machine-built flow and jump laps on Crank it Up were in order to start the day. I’ll go ahead and say that this is the best machine-built blue jump trail in the world and is the perfect place to learn and progress your skills before heading into bigger terrain like A-Line, Dirt Merchant, or the like.

The beauty of the Whistler Bike Park lies in the progression matrix of the trails. On each trail map, there’s a clearly-labeled progression chart that explains the relative difficulty of every trail on the mountain, even split between machine-built freeride trails, and au naturale tech trails. It’s a great way to answer the question of “what should we ride next?”

Some of my favorite tech laps in the Fitzsimmons zone are of the easier variant of B-Line>Funshine Rolly Drops>Smoke and Mirrors>Blueseum>B-Line. Or if you’re looking to sample some classic Whistler rock slab riding and steep gnar, check out Upper Whistler Downhill>Lower Joyride.

If all you want is airtime, look no further than the world’s most famous jump trail: A-Line. Yeah, it lives up to the hype.

The Fitzsimmons zone itself would already make a world-class bike park, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg in Whistler. Besides Fitzsimmons, there’s the Garbanzo Zone, Creekside Zone, and Peak Zone. There’s another nearly 2,000 vertical feet of riding accessible via the Garbanzo Chair or Village Gondola, plus when it’s open, an additional ticket will get you to the top of Whistler’s Peak Chair, adding 1,500 feet of high-alpine riding.

Garbanzo is home to classic freeride laps like Blue Velvet and Freight Train, the location of the classic Kokanee Contain feature. There’s also classic tech laps like Original Sin and its gnarlier double-black offshoot options like Goat’s Gully, In Deep, and Fatcrobat, plus the all-new trails Patrol Rocks and the loamy Too Mushroom.

On crowded days, especially when things are drying up and getting dusty on the popular trails, I discovered the quiet joy of the Creekside trails. These have a different character than the rest of the park, drop down all the way to the lower Creekside base area, and are easily lap-able with the Creekside Gondola.

These are some of the newest trails in the bike park, and are a great place to find excellent tacky dirt, really fun natural features, and well-built blue flow. Find your speed on Midgard and Earth Circus, or step out into some technical but easier black trails like Odesa or Delayed Fuse.

Creekside is also home to Whistler’s newest Pro Line trail, the 1199 DH track. It’s built to World Cup DH standards and named in honor of the late Canadian DH racer Stevie Smith, who scored a mind-blowing 1199 points when he won the overall World Cup title during the 2013 racing season.

The top the Creekside Gondola hosts the newly revamped Raven's restaurant, featuring a standout menu of foods inspired by the local indigenous community.

Crafted in partnership with the Squamish Lil'wat Cultural Centre and Thunderbird Cafe, it features delicious options like Venison Chili, Salmon Chowder, and Zucchini Mushroom sandwich, plus local and beer and wine from Raven's Brewing and Nk'Mip Winery.

After two days of getting our fill at the Bike Park, we decided to change things up and go for a pedal to explore the hundreds of miles of pedal-access singletrack around Whistler.

Adjacent to the bike park lie the Blackcomb Trails, accessible via the new Blackcomb Bench climbing trail that replaces the punchy road climb of years prior. There’s various single and double-black options here, including Dark Crystal, Microclimate, Hey Bud and Crazy Train, all featuring impeccable natural trail building, some spicy granite rock slabs, and an experience in the lush, loamy coastal forest unlike any other. It’s like stepping into a fairytale landscape only accessible via two wheels.

Across the valley, there’s also the one-of-a-kind Lord of the Squirrels trail, which after a massive climb via Into the Mystic into the high alpine, winds its way from the top of Mount Sproatt for over 3,000 vertical feet. Link this into any of the West Side trails below, and you’ll have one of the most unique rides in Canada under your belt.

Lessons learned? More time in Whistler is always better. With a veritable lifetime’s worth of riding accessible from town (and way more just down the road in Squamish or Pemberton), it’s no surprise that this has become the epicenter of the sport in North America. The skiing’s insane, but the biking is even better.

Check out the 2024 Crankworx Schedule.

Related: Mammoth Mountain Is Replacing Broadway, Chair #1, This Summer

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