Draft:Whistler Mountain Bike Park

Whistler Mountain Bike Park is a mountain bike park in British Columbia, Canada. It is considered the largest mountain bike park in the world by many and is the home of many professional and amateur mountain bikers. It spans an area of 8,171 acres of terrain over the majority of Whistler Mountain and its surrounding area. The massive system hosts over 750 trails for mountain biking, over 600 for hiking, and over 200 for skiing throughout Whistler Blackcomb. Because of its size, Whistler attracts a huge following every season with over 100,000 mountain bikers during the summer.

Description
Whistler Mountain Bike Park is the largest and most famous mountain bike park in the world. It is famed for the beautiful and perfect terrain for mountain biking that many professionals desire. The soil and precipitation levels in the Vancouver area perfectly suit the soil requirements for mountain biking and the trailbuilding process. The main lifts at the park are Fitzsimmons Express, Garbanzo Express, Creekside Gondola, and Whistler Gondola. These all lead to different starting points at the park. Fitzsimmons is the most used at the park by far and reaches the most accessible and favorite trails of most mountain bikers. Garbanzo reaches the uppermost part of Whistler Mountain for longer runs. Creekside connects the northwestern part of Whistler Mountain down to the Nordic and Whistler Creekside neighborhoods. In total, these gondolas climb a total of 7,500 feet.

Apart from the main park, there are 7 smaller zones around Whistler with more trails: Whistler South, Whistler Sproatt, Blackcomb, Lost Lake, Whistler Village, Whistler North, and Westside Rainbow. These 8 areas including the main Whistler Branch constitute the 8,171 acre area of terrain used. In this vast area, over 750 trails are contained.

History
In 1983, a man on the Whistler administration by the name of Jim Kennedy bought a mountain bike after being inspired by the famous movie ET. He wanted to ride his bike through the forest as the characters in the movie did, and so he did. Mountain bikers had received hate from locals at the time who only accepted skiing as the sole sport at Whistler, but he continued to ride unsanctioned forest trails.

In the mid-1980s, Kennedy (AKA Jimbo at the time) and his friends decided to use one of the ski lifts to go all the way up the mountain easily. It took lots of convincing to get the lift operators to let them through with their bikes, but in the end they succeeded.

After the "preliminary" test runs of the park by Jimbo and his friends, they started to build small trails with permission from the park owners. Eventually, a few years after the first ride happened, a course that stretched across the 15-kilometer gravel access road was released to the public, albeit more skilled mountain bikers and athletes.

In 1996, Jimbo's dream came true: the bike park had continued development over a long period of time and finally saw its grand opening: 500 riders showed up on the opening day to test out the brand new trails. This new development in Whistler caused major growth in the area, and when Intrawest took over administration of Whistler, they decided to fund the project and continue building more and more trails. Of course, new safety regulations were put in place for unsuspecting riders and the park was fully advertised.

Over the years, Whistler gained extreme amounts of popularity and got the attention of major race organizers, such as Crankworx, UCI, Red Bull, and Enduro World Series. Many events have been hosted there in the past 2 decades and is a favorite location of hundreds of professional downhill, enduro, cross-country, and slopestyle mountain bikers.

Events and Races
Past major races and events hosted at Whistler Mountain Bike Park are:


 * 1982 World Cup
 * 2004-present Cranxworx
 * Red Bull Joyride
 * Downhill
 * Slopestyle
 * 2022 Enduro World Series
 * Local races and EPIC routes
 * Future and possible Olympic events
 * 2023 UCI DHI Men's and Women's

Whistler Mountain Bike Park (Main)
Whistler's main branch consists of 4 lifts that link the valley to the top of Whistler Mountain. The 2 main ones, Fitzsimmons Express and Garbanzo Express, link up at 3400 feet on Whistler Mountain. From there, most of Whistler's best trail will start. If you continue up the mountain on Garbanzo Express, you will end up on the highest possible point that trails will start. This route however, does not provide the longest run. If you go up the Creekside Gondola on the western side of the mountain from the village, you will reach the origin of many trails. When ridden correctly, these trails lead a much longer path down towards the bottom then taking other lifts. A total of 154 trails can be accessed in the Whistler Main Branch that stretch a distance of 65 miles.

Whistler South CRA
Whistler South is much smaller than the main branch, only containing 44 trails and stretching a distance of 32 miles. The area is not lift-serviced, meaning climbing access trails is the only way to access certain parts of the southern side of Whistler Mountain. However, it does connect down with the valley, which hosts some trails that aren't as technically challenging as mountain trails. Whistler South is not a very ridden area, so it is not as well-known or famous as other branches. However, it does present some decent challenges and beautiful trails that are sure to give you a workout.

Top 25 Trails
Note: All trails listed above are in the main branch of the Whistler Mountain Bike Park.