JOJI SAKURAI
AP National Writer
WHISTLER, British Columbia – The valley hosting Alpine events for the Winter Games is a spectacle of nature, with mountains covered in spruce and pine and mist visible between bouts of fog.
Beneath the peaks stirs a world of glittering artifice, a long stretch of chalet-style buildings that has the look and feel of an upscale theme park – and erupts into raucous partying well before the sun goes down.
“Whistler,” says Brian Sullivan, director of the Black Tusk Gallery, which shows native art from the Pacific Northwest, “is kind of like the Vegas of skiing.”