Launching Whistler / Blackcomb's Peak 2 Peak

Launching Whistler/Blackcomb's Peak 2 Peak
Shane McConkey and Co. christen the new gondy with a series of BASE jumps
By Shane McConkey
Photos by Yorick Carroux

The latest Red Bull project up in Whistler was another great success and a ton of fun. On December 12th, Whistler/Blackcomb opened their new Peak 2 Peak Gondola which connects the two mountains from the top. To help "launch" this amazing new engineering marvel, Miles Daisher, Chuck the Chuckin, a few other members of the Red Bull Air Force - Andy Farrington, Luke Aikens, Jon DeVore and Eli Thompson - and launched ourselves off one of the gondola cabins from its highest point, about 1,427 feet above the valley floor. To see the video go to www.whistlerblackcomb.com

Click on the middle video link - the one with the Red Bull logo on it. See if you can spot Chuck.

We all had an amazing time in Whistler enjoying their incredible mountain and village. That place is a lot of fun and the skiing up there is pretty dam sweet.

The event was scheduled for Dec 12th but due to what looked like some snowy weather that week, we decided to get up to Whistler a week early to nail the jumps during some good weather. We all got three jumps each for the cameras so that we would ensure having the footage in the can for the official launch on the 12th. All went great and we traded off filming each other on the jumps. On one of the jumps Miles got directly underneath me so I pulled early. This earned me an embarrassing altitude abuse ticket! I got to do a bunch of flippy doodles on a couple of the other jumps so that kind of made up for it. Miles got some great shots of me while jumping with me as the cameraman. This is usually harder than doing flips or tricks. The next week we flew back to Whistler for the official launch but the weather wasn't very good for filming the jumps. The event production used the footage of the previous jumps for the live ceremony and for the web cam but we still all jumped right during the ribbon cutting anyway. Nobody saw that except for the people in the gondola with us but we didn't care. It was still fun as hell!