The stars are out the night Whistler turns 60, and not just the ones in the sky. More than 800 people pack into the Roundhouse at the top of Whistler Mountain to mark the milestone on January 15, 2026. Every single one of them is a flashy weirdo: Hippy hair. I-SKI mirrored sunglasses. Vintage ski patrol jackets in burnished “rainier red”. They’re shouting and gyrating and, under the classic sign that marks Seppo’s, they’re twerkin’ and swiggin’ beer. To quote Shakespeare in The Tempest: “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
A woman, maybe in her late 20s, wears a string of vintage Whistler Mountain season passes like charms on a necklace—dozens of them, counting far more than her years. “Those can’t all be yours,” I say as Grateful Greg and Guitar Doug of The Hairfarmers hammer out all the rockin’ oldies Whistlerites love. “Nope,” the young’un says, “they’re my family’s. We’ve been skiin’ here since the start.” She’s wearing a snug 1960s ski jacket—possibly her grandmother’s, possibly made by White Stag, definitely dating back to Whistler’s start. And when I hand her my Ski Canada business card she oogles over it, thinking it’s vintage. “Look at this!” she shouts to a friend. “I’ve never seen one of these before!”
Dreadlocks, Mohawks, Naked Skiers & Hipster Hair
Hugh Smythe, a Whistler godfather, passes by in a funky hat-and-hairy-wig combo, plus a T-shirt that says Garibaldi’s Whistler Mtn Staff 66. I can’t get close enough, but it appears as if in the photo on his vintage ski pass, a teenage Hugh has very long hair. Some of the devils here still do have hipster hair that, indeed, is their own. In fact, everywhere you look there’s an old dude with authentic grey dreadlocks, or a silver ponytail snaking out from under a neon ballcap. I don’t see the keener with the orange Glen-Plake-style mohawk and the WWI aviator goggles that I spot skiing Whistler every once in a while. Surely, somewhere he’s here.
But not everyone carousing high in the Roundhouse is aged 70 or 80. Nope, not at all. Mike Douglas—another godfather, this one of freeskiing—is up on stage. He’s wearing a ’90s headband and a team Phenix onesie with Canadian maple leafs. The Roundhouse is full of Mike’s fellow filmmakers, photographers and artists who lent cred to the Whistler Ski & Snowboard Festival way back when. I look for Rob Boyd, Ace Mackay-Smith and Stephanie Sloan but can’t spot them in the madding crowd. I want to ask Sloan to tell me again the story of the famous Toad Hall naked skiers image, as she was there. “Yeah,” Sloan told me once for a story in Skiing History magazine, “I was there the day Speedie took the photograph. Everyone thinks I’m the woman doing the [naked] handstand, but I’m not. I’m so glad I didn’t do that. I was there but that wasn’t me.”
Tommy Africa’s, Take Me Back
Up in the Roundhouse I don’t see anyone naked, but I do see a ton of women in tall tuques and pompom hats. One is wearing a hot-pink faux fur coat and bunny ears—I want to ask if she go-go danced in the ‘90s at Tommy Africa’s but I don’t have the nerve. At this point I’m wishing I still had the lime-green-and-pink one-piece suit that scored me a spot in an early 1990s photo shoot for Blackcomb Ski School. I don’t know if I was thrilled or mortified 10 years ago to see it reprised in the commemorative book: Whistler Blackcomb 50 Years of Going Beyond. I remember thinking: Geezus, I’m old.
And then along comes Lauralee Bowie (three-time World Champion freestyle skier) in a fab Tyrolia suit that’s colour-blocked in pink, orange, yellow and black. The headband she’s dug out of the storage trunk gives her that Jamie-Lee-Curtis-in-Perfect look—a spandex-y aerobics film c.1985. Lauralee gives me a big hug and cavalierly invites me to visit her beach digs in Noosa, Australia. I’m thinking yes, please, but I’m pretty sure, tomorrow she’s not going to remember extending the invite.
As I drift down the gondola after the party, watching the Whistler lights wink in the night, I think about all the characters who’ve made this town shine. Vail Resorts, the mountain’s current owner, gets a lot of flack for the way it runs things, as well as for bringing on a ton of change—in fact, I’m here this year in Whistler trying to define the scope of that change, the good and the bad.
But I have to say, Vail put on a pretty groovy, Hendrix-style party on this night to see Whistler into its 60th year…many of its devils were here. Now excuse me while I kiss the sky.
