Whistler's best-kept secrets for the ultimate ski trip for Australians

It's minus six degrees, I can barely feel my fingertips and I'm trying desperately to balance a tray of champagne flutes in front of me as I hurtle down a massive Canadian mountain.

To make matters even trickier, I'm also trying to keep up with Olympian and freestyle world ski championship silver medallist Julia Murray.

"Hands up! Champagne!" yells Murray cheerily as she effortlessly pulls away from me on the first black run of the day.

The champagne, of course, is not real. It's an exercise Murray has given me to try to break my bad habit of dropping a hand behind when turning, as she tries to undo decades of self-taught skiing mistakes.

"Squeeze the juice out of the orange, tip water out of your ear, keep your feet in the box," I mutter to myself as I try to remember the various tricks I've been taught since arriving in Whistler Blackcomb.

I've travelled to eye-poppingly beautiful British Columbia in Canada to be part of the 60th anniversary of North America's largest ski resort. And I've been promised the insider tips most Aussies miss that take a ski trip from great to amazing.

If Whistler was a sovereign nation, Australians would represent a significant ethnic minority. An estimated 30 per cent of the winter workforce are Australians, and from the restaurants to the hotel concierge desks, Aussie accents are thick on the ground.

And since Vail Resorts' purchase in 2016, there's been a flood of southern hemisphere skiers on the slopes too, thanks to the area being added to the Epic Pass. Passholders at Australian resorts including Perisher, Falls Creek and Hotham, can now ski up to 10 days at Whistler on their same pass, making a northern hemisphere season an irresistible draw for many antipodeans.

But big resorts come with big decisions. It's not uncommon to find first-timers at the mega resort standing slack-jawed in the car park when they first arrive in "Whistralia", wondering how to turn their powder dreams into reality.

Whistler Blackcomb, spread across two enormous mountains, is a daunting sight for the uninitiated. A fierce battle between the formerly separate neighbours of Whistler and Blackcomb in the 1980s resulted in an infrastructure arms race to build ever bigger, higher lift networks, some bolted directly into the shifting ice.

Today, those networks are joined by the world-record setting Peak2Peak gondola. The result is a vast skiable area of more than 200 runs spread across 32 square kilometres and three glaciers. It's so big, and reaches so high, that some stores in the village even sell cans of oxygen for those struggling with the rise up to the 2284-metre highest lifted point.

Just working out where to start with such a cornucopia of options can therefore be overwhelming.

Fortunately, this task has been made significantly easier in 2026 thanks to the introduction of seven "Wonder Routes" - a series of self-guided tours designed to guide different levels of ability to areas best suiting their skills and interests.

Intermediate skiers and boarders wanting a curated selection of groomed runs can take a tour of the super blues, accessible directly from the Epic app and well signposted. High-altitude thrill seekers can take on a six- to eight-hour epic journey of the steepest, gnarliest runs with the Alpine Sampler. There's even an apres-ski tour taking visitors to the best eating and drinking on the mountain, while a family-friendly route leads to a secret fort hidden deep in the forest.

But there's nothing like having a local show you around to really feel at home, and when it comes to locals, they don't come better qualified than Olympian Julia Murray who competed in Whistler in 2010 against incredible odds.

On the chairlift up she tells us about how her dream to compete at a home Olympics nearly slipped through her fingers when she smashed her knee to pieces just a month ahead of the event.

"I decided to try and clear three jumps instead of two in one go, and ended up squashing myself like a bug," she says with a shrug. Still carrying the injury she competed just weeks later, realising her dream to ski for her country on the world's biggest stage.

As someone who's skied more than a dozen resorts on multiple continents but never actually had a lesson, I'm more than a little intimidated at the prospect of showing my self-taught technique to an elite athlete. But as we get halfway down the first run our guide for the morning lets out a loud, "Woo hoo!"

"You guys are FAST, this is going to be an awesome morning, let's go rip!" she bubbles, as our chests swell with a little pride at having not embarrassed ourselves in the presence of greatness.

We zip, duck and weave as our little conga line of skiers and boarders chase Murray down from the top of Franz's Chair until we come to a stop at a large signboard. The sign marks the start of the 2010 Olympic downhill and Super G course, but it's the name on the board that catches our attention.

It's named the Dave Murray Downhill in tribute to Julia's famous father, a member of the original Crazy Canucks who became national heroes for their fearless pioneering of the downhill ski circuit in the '70s and '80s.

"I love skiing my Dad's run, it's my favourite on the mountain," she says before issuing a few champagne-tray instructions and disappearing down the steeps in front of us.

We pause again halfway down to grab a snap under the Olympic rings, hoping some of that greatness has rubbed off.

Social media has a big sway on where people choose to holiday, and it can also amplify the worst days at those places. It doesn't take long to discover reels of long lift queues at ski resorts, including Whistler.

Due to its easy access from Vancouver, when the stars align and the weather gods deliver a dump of snow, powder hounds flock to the resort. If you're unlucky enough to be caught up in the frenzy, particularly on a weekend or public holiday, it can be a frustrating experience.

But there's a golden ticket that allows you to skip the queues and get first tracks ahead of everyone else - the dawn patrol.

We meet our guide for the morning Francois at the Whistler heli-skiing office and soon we're wandering past the lines already starting to form at the bottom of the village gondola.

We float quietly over the eerily empty piste below, and before long we're standing at the top of the untouched Jersey Cream bowl.

Fresh tracks is usually a hard-earned privilege involving queuing for hours or exhausting bootpacking, so it feels like cheating to carve our marks in the untouched runs. Lap after lap we chase our guide down the best runs on the mountain, carving wide, sweeping arcs in the pristine surface before the first of the "regular" riders start to appear.

We disappear into the trees looking for one last taste of untouched snow before our guide says the magic words every visitor wants to hear; "Come on, I know a spot."

A curious eavesdropper on the chair looks over and inquires, "Do you mean Spanky's Ladder?" the short hike leading to double black terrain, but Francois is giving nothing away, and simply shakes his head.

We traverse down from the highest lift of the trip until Francois instructs us to take our skis off - it's a climb from here.

"We're going into the grey zone, it's a great spot to find bowls of powder and not everyone gets out here," he says. I soon see why.

After a short bootpack we clip in and I find myself surrounded by cliffs on three sides and a rock wall behind us. Opting for the least terrifying option we drop into a short traverse not visible from above and soon we're diving into a hidden bowl of powder as snow starts to spray up to my waist. I pull off two good turns before blowing the third, but the light snow is forgiving and we're soon back on the groomed runs after an exhilarating adventure into one of the most remote, special corners of the resort.

As talk of a powder day ripples through the bars and lift lines, we decide to give our weary legs a day off, and after a heart-starting zip line through the forest over glacial blue rivers below, we arrive at the Scandinave Spa. We're given our towels and robes, a short induction and told that for the next two hours we are not to speak - the spa is a silent zone.

We move from hot tubs to cold plunge pools, and back again into the saunas and eucalyptus-scented steam rooms. Just as I'm tempted to give in and start whispering, one of the stern-faced "shushers" arrives with the word SILENCE stamped across her back. I sink back into the steaming water as my tired legs slowly turn to putty.

But our hosts have one more insider secret to share before bringing our trip to a close. We don beanies and warm jackets before loading into a bus and driving into the twilight. By the time we arrive at our destination thick snow is falling and we load into a snow cat to head further into the forest.

Up, up our snow cat climbs until eventually we reach a clearing in the vast, quiet snow-lined forest. In front of us a set of wooden steps leads up to a white geodesic dome.

It's starting to get dark and I'm wondering what exactly we're going to find inside the Mystic Mountain dome. As the door swings open there's a gasp from the first member of our group. Inside in one corner there's a roaring wood fire, but the real show stopper is the huge, panoramic window. On top of our little hill we're granted an uninterrupted view as far as the eye can see of nothing but snow-draped firs and hemlocks.

Our host hands us warm ciders and we sink into the comfy sofas and beanbags to soak up the last of the view in the dying light.

We snack on the charcuterie platters far more generous than our small group can get through, before the source of the enticing aroma is revealed, and fresh wood-fired pizzas appear magically from the dome's slow combustion heater.

It's a great chance to relax and reflect on an incredible journey packed full of adventure, exploring and friendships set to endure beyond our brief time together.

Just as we reluctantly start preparing to board our snow cat for the journey home, colourful fireworks explode over the dome in a picture-perfect display, just for us. It's one of those magic pinch-me surprises that stay in the memory long after the details of the journey are forgotten.

The writer was a guest of Vail Resorts-Epic Australia Pass, Whistler Blackcomb and Tourism Whistler