Editing Whistler Blackcomb (section)

===Intrawest buys Whistler===
[[File:Whistler Mountain 3.jpg|right|thumb|600 px|Whistler Mountain, as seen looking south from Blackcomb Mountain. The original Whistler area starts mid-frame and extends down and to the right. Whistler Peak is just to the right of the fold. To the left of the peak is the Harmony Bowl area, Little Whistler Peak, and then the recently opened Symphony Bowl. [[The Black Tusk]] can be seen in the distance between Whistler Peak and Little Whistler.]]

In 1997, the Whistler Mountain Ski Corporation was also bought out by [[Intrawest]].<ref name=hist/>

Like their expansion on Blackcomb, Intrawest immediately started a major build-out on Whistler. Following a deadly accident on Quicksilver in December 1995, all three of Whistler's Yan high speed quads were replaced. A new Creekside Gondola was constructed by [[Poma]] for the 1996-1997 season to replace Quicksilver. In 1997, [[Doppelmayr (North America)|Doppelmayr]] constructed new high speed quads to replace the Redline and Greenline chairs, respectively named the Big Red Express and Emerald Express. These lifts received new terminals and chairs, but reused the predecessor lifts' towers. The original Roundhouse was demolished and a new lodge built in its place. Around this time Intrawest began marketing the two mountains as one large ski area under the name "Whistler-Blackcomb". On April 20, 1999, Whistler Blackcomb became the first North American ski resort to top 2 million skier visits in one season.

1998 saw the replacement of the Peak Chair with a high-speed quad. The original Peak Chair was renamed Franz's Chair and moved parallel to Big Red with a return station approximately halfway up Big Red's lift line. Franz's runs primarily in early and late season, when lower altitudes are not well covered. In 1999, the Black Chair was replaced with a high speed quad, the Garbanzo Express, running on a longer alignment starting next to the Whistler Village Gondola's midstation that eliminated the need for guests skiing this terrain to ride the Olympic Chair. The Fitzsimmons Express was added in 2000, following the line of the long-gone Village Chair and roughly paralleling the lower part of the gondola. The top of Fitzsimmons and the bottom of Garbanzo are co-located in the Village Gondola Olympic station area, providing extra lift capacity from the Whistler Village to the top of the mid-mountain zone in addition to the gondola itself. It was the second lift with the Fitszimmons name, the original lift being a triple chairlift replaced by Stage 1 of the Excalibur Gondola in 1994.

Starting in 2000, Intrawest started redeveloping the Creekside area with new village layout. Throughout, Intrawest also extensively developed the summertime attractions, notably golf and [[mountain biking]]. Today, Whistler Blackcomb averages 2 million visitors during the ski season, but another 2.5 during the summer.<ref name=walk/>

Whistler Blackcomb's 2006/2007 season saw Doppelmayr construct the Symphony Express, a high speed quad that begins towards the bottom of the Symphony Amphitheater and carries riders to the top of Piccolo.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/mountain/symphony/index.htm |title=Symphony Amphitheatre & the Symphony Express |publisher=Whistlerblackcomb.com |access-date=March 10, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718041317/http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/mountain/symphony/index.htm |archive-date=July 18, 2011 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref> One of the original names suggested for this lift was Piccolo Express.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/media/news/season_2005-06/060331.htm |title=New Piccolo Lift For The 2006/07 Season |publisher=Whistlerblackcomb.com |date=March 31, 2006 |access-date=March 10, 2011 |archive-date=July 20, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720070807/http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/media/news/season_2005-06/060331.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

A more ambitious upgrade was the [[Peak 2 Peak Gondola]], opened to provide a direct connection between the Roundhouse on Whistler and Rendezvous on Blackcomb. Peak-to-Peak opened for the first time on December 12, 2008, but low snowfall meant it was rockbound at the time. The first summer operation day was June 6, 2009.