Editing Whistler Blackcomb (section)

===Renewed competition===
In response to Blackcomb Mountain's construction of three high-speed quads, Whistler Mountain undertook one of the biggest ski-lift construction projects ever realized in Canada at the time, the construction of the Whistler Express Gondola. Carrying passengers {{convert|1157|m|ft|abbr=on}} vertically and {{convert|5|km|mi|abbr=on}} horizontally over 63 support towers, the lift opened on November 24, 1988. In 1990 Whistler began upgrading its aging fleet of fixed grip chairlifts with the addition of its first [[high-speed quad chairlift]]. The Green Chair Express, which replaced the two Green Chairs, was built by [[Lift Engineering]] (Yan), and substantially cut long lift queues in the Green area of the mountain. A year later, Whistler Mountain replaced three double chairlifts and the original Creekside gondola with two [[high-speed quad chairlift]]s, the Quicksilver Express and Redline Express lifts, also built by [[Lift Engineering]]. In 1994, the Blue Chair was removed and replaced with a [[Poma]] high speed quad named the Harmony Express, providing access to Little Whistler Peak.

In 1994, Blackcomb made what would be its last major lift expansion until 2018 with the replacement of the lower mountain triple chairlifts. Stoker was replaced with a high speed quad in a longer alignment known as the Excelerator Express, while Fitzsimmons and Cruiser were replaced with the two-stage Excalibur Gondola, running from Whistler Village to the base of Excelerator with a mid-station near the top of the former Fitzsimmons lift. The second is dubbed by some as the "gondola to nowhere" since it does not connect with any restaurant or access additional terrain. However, in combination with Excelerator, it allowed rapid access to Blackcomb for Whistler Village traffic, who previously had to take three or four chairlifts to Rendezvous (Fitzsimmons, Stoker, Cruiser, and Jersey Cream, with 3 of those being slower chairs; or Fitzsimmons, Wizard and Solar Coaster). Excelerator also opened up a vast area of intermediate-difficulty terrain to the left of Solar Coaster and below Jersey Cream that was previously neglected and under-utilized, because skiers who traveled those slopes frequently had to go all the way to the bottom of the mountain, which was over-skied and icy.

This competition had driven development of the two mountains at a rate no other resorts could come close to matching. In 1992, ''Snow Country Magazine'' voted Whistler the Number One Ski Resort in North America. Similar No. 1 rankings quickly followed from other major magazines, and between 1992 and 2000 it won No. 1 ranking from one of the major magazines every year. In 1996, it became the only resort in history to be simultaneously named No. 1 by ''Snow Country'', ''SKI'' and ''Skiing'' magazines.<ref name=hist/>