UBC may sell Whistler Lodge

A budget deficit means UBC could sell Whistler Lodge, the ski resort that has provided ultra-cheap accommodation for students in the mountain town north of Vancouver since 1965.

The Alma Mater Society, UBC’s student union, has a $100,000 budget hole and at least $30,000 of the annual deficit comes from losses at the lodge, which offers students bunks for $29 a night or private rooms for $90. With the hotel prices in Whistler averaging $177 per night in 2010, it makes skiing and snowboarding possible for students who couldn’t afford to otherwise.

“[Selling] is one of the options on the table,” AMS President Jeremy McElroy told the Pique, a Whistler paper. “(The lodge is) something that we like, students built it and it’s part of a tradition for UBC for the better part of 50 years. We don’t really want to shut it down.”