Whistler Heli-Skiing
By: Whistler Blackcomb · 15 Jun
No snow yet. Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear here once snow starts to fall. Until then, the long-run record comes first.
Typical snowfall
637cm
- Elevation
- 653–2,259 m
We do not show a snow depth here. The weather model we use reports snow lying on the ground — it knows nothing about grooming or snowmaking, and it is not the base depth a ski area publishes. In Japan we can check our figures against 234 weather stations. Outside Japan there is nothing to check them against, so we do not print a number we have not verified. Snow report on the official site ↗
Whistler Blackcomb, in British Columbia, Canada, runs from 653 m at the base to 2,259 m at the top. The map shows 619 marked runs and 36 lifts (about 299 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 637 cm of snowfall a season, 29th of 3,069 worldwide and 3rd in Canada. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2015/16 (1,098 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2023/24 (438 cm). December brings as much snow as January here (205 and 187 cm on average).
The nearest city of any size is Vancouver, about 94 km away in a straight line.
How much snow it gets
Measured by us across 3,069 ski areas by one identical method. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Seasonal snowfall
637cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
438cm
The middle winter of the 12: 641 cm. The best: 1098 cm.
World rank
29
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
3
of 171 in Canada
Elevation rank
27
Highest to lowest, of 171 in Canada. The centre point sits at 1,300 m, 763 m above the national median.
Compared with what is nearby
Within 50 km in a straight line. Ski areas in the same weather-model cell (about 30 km across) get the same figure.
| Ski area | Distance | Seasonal snowfall | World rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ski Callaghan | 17.0 km | 710 cm | 10 |
Runs and lifts
Counted from the runs and lifts drawn on OpenStreetMap, within the boundary of the ski area. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Marked runs
619
Run length
299km
Lifts
36
Vertical
1,606m
Top 2,259 m · base 653 m
Run map
NoviceEasyIntermediateAdvancedExpertOther Lift
Slope shape, difficulty and lift types
The shape of the mountain
Longest run on the map4.5 km
Steepest pitch43°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs13.1°
Which way the slopes face
North 47%
East 13%
South 8%
West 33%
60% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east; plenty of the terrain faces the sun as well, so the lean is modest.
By difficulty
Novice 11 · 2.2 km
Easy 165 · 74.1 km
Intermediate 209 · 123.2 km
Advanced 213 · 95.1 km
Expert 10 · 3.4 km
Other 11 · 1.2 km
Lift types
- Chairlift16
- Gondola9
- Magic carpet9
- T-bar2
See past trail maps on Skimap.org ↗
Source: OpenSkiMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0). How finely ski areas are drawn varies by region, so treat the counts as indicative. Vertical is the difference between the highest and lowest points of the mapped runs and lifts.
When it falls, and how winters differ
Month by month
Month by month, the most snow falls in December. March brings 72% of January’s snowfall. That is in line with the median for ski areas in Canada (79%). In amount, March brings 134 cm, more than the median of 32 cm.
205cmDec
187cmJan
112cmFeb
134cmMar
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 637 cm, and 5 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2023/24 with 438 cm; the biggest was 2015/16 with 1,098 cm (2.5 times as much). For 26% of the 171 ski areas in Canada, the leanest winter was the same 2023/24.
658
1,098
642
591
639
755
701
532
493
438
445
650
14/1515/1616/1717/1818/1919/2020/2121/2222/2323/2424/2525/26
Snowfall each winter (December–March total). The dashed line is the average; the numbers mark the leanest and the biggest winter.
Live cameras
This ski area does not put a camera on its own slopes. What follows are nearby cameras, not the pistes themselves.
Footage remains the copyright of each operator. JAPANSNOWLINE neither stores nor redistributes it.
Some cameras here are provided by Windy.com. Footage plays in Windy’s own player; we do not store it. Windy.com
See the snow in motion
Videos remain the copyright of whoever filmed them. JAPANSNOWLINE stores no video and plays everything through the standard YouTube player.
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