Usually, the only time skiers or snowboarders notice the lifts in a mountain resort is when one of them doesn’t work. Otherwise, we take them for granted.

We jump on, swap news about the best runs and have a quick moan about the price of a cup of hot chocolate, and then - oh look - it’s time to get off and start tearing about the slopes again.

That isn’t the case on the new Peak 2 Peak gondola. It opened on Friday in the Canadian resort of Whistler, a two-hour drive north of Vancouver, and it is a very unusual kind of lift - one that’s as cool as the skiing and boarding itself.

Why? Because it links two entirely separate mountains - 7,160ft Whistler and 8,000ft Blackcomb - at a point where they are a mind-boggling 2.7 miles apart.

The opening party of the Whistler-Blackcomb gondola

Two ski fields in Canada were yesterday linked by a new 4.4km gondola dangling up to 430m above the ground... Kate Whittaker reports

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In order to reach that far, the cables have to be strung across a central, unsupported span that is nearly two miles wide, and the 28-person gondola dangles 1,427ft above the pine forests below, both world records for this type of lift.

Needless to say, it’s taken a lot of money (£28m) and engineering nous to achieve this.

But it’s not just the anoraks who are excited about the Peak 2 Peak.

Whistler may be the largest and most highly rated resort in North America, but its relatively low altitude, coupled with its Pacific coast location, has given it two distinct climates – and only one of them is good for skiing.

On the upper halves of its two mountains, the resort is reminiscent of the best of the Alps: cold, snowy and blessed with a scintillating variety of terrain.

Lower down, on pistes that run through dense forests, conditions can be much iffier.

Fog can shroud the valley, rain drench the slopes, and spring thaws produce the heaviest slush you’ve had the misfortune to ski in.

It’s not always like that, of course - far from it - but on days when the weather isn’t cooperating, skiers and boarders have always had to migrate to the top half of one of the mountains, and stay there. On such occasions, Whistler hasn’t seemed quite so large or fantastic as its reputation suggests.

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