GETTING THERE
Like I said, a holiday company will pick you up from the airport which will save money and make things easier in your post–Atlantic discombobulated state. The airport is around 150km south of Whistler, and although serviced by coaches (coach £85 per adult return) and limos (stretched limo £125 one way per person based on four sharing and bikes) it is much nicer to have a friendly face to meet you at the airport, get you acquainted to the area, and perhaps stop off at Timmy Hortons in Squamish for some brown nitro juice and some Timbits.
STAYING THERE
We have discussed what this means for short stays so lets move onto seasonaires. Housing will be your single biggest financial outlay all summer, except for the new frame, new forks, and numerous wheel rebuilds that will be required at the least opportune times. Houses are rented on a monthly basis and all rental agreements begin on the 1st of the month. Don’t go through a rental agency as they cost a lot more, they will expect a giant damage deposit which you won’t get back, and when the living room floor collapses all the agency staff will magically be on holiday for the rest of the summer. Instead look through the Pique Newsmagazine (www.piquenewsmagazine.com), which is a local paper that comes out on Thursdays each week and lists many of the rental properties available. You can go online and look through the classified too if you want to secure things whilst you are overseas.
A rental will cost you from £250 per month (this is if you are either very lucky or don’t mind sharing the same bed with a bin man and someone who guts fish for a living) upwards to, well sky’s the limit. Luckily housing in the summer is more readily available than in the winter and most of the landlords are pretty laid back and just want to see the mortgage paid. You can try and find a room sharing with strangers, which can be a pot luck for you and them, or you can take on the lease of a property yourself and fill it with your mates or acquaintances.
Alternatively, if you want to be organized and have some piece of mind before getting out to Whistler then try Season–It (www.seasonit.co.uk), a local company set up by Englishman Alan Golds. He possesses numerous houses which he rents out on a room by room basis. The houses are all well maintained, well located and have secure bike storage. He will even come around to personally check that you have enough toilet paper.
Hostels are the great sexual meeting place of frugal travellers, idealistic students, and fire poi spinning, red dreadlocked, Swedish super geeks who define the meaning of dirty. However, here really isn’t much in the way of hostels in Whistler. Try searching the word hostel on the Tourism Whistler website and it will come back asking you to translate your Klingon into English. There is the Southside Lodge in Creekside (2102 Lake Placid Rd) that is barely a room crammed with beds above a splendid little diner. Starting at around £20 per night for a dorm, it represents almost a bargain for Whistler, if it wasn’t located around seven kilometres away from the village centre.
WORKING
So you want to go for season riding in Whistler but you don’t want to work to save the money beforehand, that’s understandable, but remember one thing, unless you are a blessed ‘Trustafarian’ you will need to work when you get there. Every job in Whistler will require you to have a valid work visa or work permit. There is a new IEC (International Experience Canada) permit which amalgamates the previous Student Working Holiday Visa and the Holiday Visa into one and allows applicants to apply direct to the Canadian Government rather than through a second agency like BUNAC. If you are 18–30 years old, hold a UK Passport and are not a mad child molesting monster then you can apply for one of these and it is valid for one year. If you wish you can still apply through BUNAC (www.bunac.org) but they do charge a fee for simply pointing out to you that you need to sign a piece of paper that most window lickers would realize they needed to sign anyway.
If you plan to work then get there early, but don’t expect to actually start work and receiving a pay cheque for several months. Whistler is a town based on tourists and the peak seasons aren’t till mid summer. The months of April–June and September–Dec are considered the dead season and hours are cut everywhere. Make sure you have enough money to survive if you plan to sit it out through the shoulder season and just enjoy the riding time while you can.
