Being a ski bum; working patchy hours for minimum wage; living in the Australian Refugee Camp, aka The Ghetto, aka Staff Housing; partying in Whistler; riding all the time? Is it worth it?
The basic Whistler lifestyle is summarised beautifully in this video (warning - possibly not work appropriate, contains Mr Noodle references). In this blog, I'll explore a few themes, some already referenced in the video. These include Working in Whistler, the Social Life, Lifestyle, Is Whistler Good For Me and finally Will I Enjoy It.
Working in Whistler
The easiest way to get into Whistler is to work directly for Whistler Blackcomb. This has some excellent perks, including a season pass; discounts for food and retail (50% off on the mountain for food!); access to Club Shred and then more perks; free lessons; staff accommodation; subsidised dinners and more good things. This is offset by a miserable wage, flaky hours and not necessarily great job security, which is fine, but be prepared to live within a tight budget, or destroy your savings. These will get cut into pretty heavily regardless early in the season as the mountain slowly ramps up.
Some jobs are certainly better than others. If you can get work for reservations, there are loads of hours, a higher pay rate, cheaper access to certain classes and the opportunity to win things like heli-skiing trips, but you also have to spend your days getting abused by Americans, and are super busy early in the season. You'd struggle to arrange for a 4 day roster, which is a good thing to have. At the other end of the scale is the lifty, who stands in the snow and wind all day helping tourists get onto lifts, stopping it and helping them when they get in trouble, and getting abused about queues. They are permanently wind-burnt and cold, and have very little to offer in the Whistler game of exchange of favours on the mountain to gain favours in return. This market is firmly controlled by food and bev, who have the perk of a free lunch each shift, and free leftovers at the end of each shift. Get friends in food and bev. If you work in food and bev, don't be a busser. Being jostled by impatient tourists, picking up their filthy half-eaten meals and spills on the table, getting abused (seeing a trend yet) by tourists for there not being any free tables in an area that sits 1600 people and sorting through trays of food into recyclable and compostable components (an excellent system, but not necessarily pleasant to carry out) in a smelly sorting room sounds as good as it is.
Although there has been quite a few mentions of abusive guests, 95% of the people you will meet with while working on the mountain will be excellent, friendly and often really interesting people. I had a ball working at Harmony Hut, and enjoyed serving almost all of the people coming through. Where there were issues, they were almost always either staff or Americans. Just ask Bron about how Americans interpret her name.
The Social Life
Whistler's party scene is pretty decent, but as discussed in the Part 2 Review, it is expensive. As a result there are quite a few staff parties about, and pre-drinking is an important part of a night out. There are a few cheap strategies that can be employed at Whistler to achieve an altered mental state.
- Growers Cider: 2 litres at around 8% for $8? Yeah, that's cheap alcohol. And if its cold, its easy enough to drink. Full of sugar, hangover danger high.
- Cheap Beer: There are quite a few cheap beers available from the BC Liquor stores. These are generally terrible, and should only be drunk in emergencies.
- Drugs: The sad reality is it is cheaper to get off on coke or pills in Whistler than it is to go to a bar and even grab a couple of pints. We don't use, but it was pretty prevalent and supposedly decent quality. You make your own choices, but be safe.
The staff party scene is pretty good, with Saturday usually the quiet night - avoid tourists, hit up places on their special nights, get locals cards for clubs, have fun. Remember, if you turn up late too often or too destroyed, you'll pick up warnings,get suspended and lose your lift pass, and eventually your job and your housing. Listen to the video.
Lifestyle
The Whistler ski bum lifestyle is incredible, as long as you really enjoy skiing or snowboarding, and can handle living in a big bubble. If you don't enjoy snow sports (or partying loads I guess), it would be hell. I was up on the mountain every day for 133 days, either working, riding or both, and had a great time.
Most people on the mountain live in staff housing. Generally, this consists of an old small apartment, with 2-3 bedrooms, 4 people, a shower and a tiny common area, a good part of which will be devoted to storing snow sports equipment. If you have good housemates, this is great - we were really lucky in this regards. People with bad housemates really struggled, and generally moved around, which is always an option.
You too could live here!
Is Whistler Good For Me?
As discussed in the video, Whistler is not good for you, and will likely reduce your life expectancy. Despite what you think, snowboarding or skiing don't really use that much energy most of the time once you are competent. The chairlift does all the work for you. Its cold and snowing outside, so you aren't likely to do a lot of exercise, and the gym is too expensive or you'll need to catch a bus, which will after a little while seem like a lot of effort. Coupled with this, you'll be drinking lots of beer, sitting around, eating loads of fatty and/or carb heavy foods (as they are cheap) and probably not a lot of fresh veges (although we were pretty good from this end). You will not get enough sunshine until spring, so no vitamins from there either. And this doesn't even go into the numerous dangers of skiing or snowboarding. And cliff drops are addictive!
Another thing, Whistler is full of STDs. Especially barmen at Whistler. I wouldn't even recommend shaking their hands.
Happily, Gramps came up clean
Virtually everyone in Whistler puts on weight, ends up glaringly white and gets sick quite often. Many people suffer injuries, and by the end of the season you'll have picked up one or two niggles. There is the odd death on the mountain.
Jo didn't even know how she picked this one up
On the other hand, you'll be really happy and have lots of fun, so in all a decent trade off.
Will I Enjoy It?
If you really enjoy skiing or snowboarding, or are confident you will, then yes, you will. If you don't or aren't sure, maybe not, but its casual work and flights are cheap, you can always leave.
