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Whistler’s Great Outdoors Festival returns for its sophomore year with new levels of competition and another multi-tiered showcase of outdoor recreation in the mountains.

Staged for the Victoria Day long weekend, May 15–18, GO Fest merges the interests of the outdoor festival enthusiast with those of the traditional and competitive sports crowd for four days of racing, learning new skills, celebration and culture designed to draw nature lovers to the mountains.

“In our inaugural year, we focused on celebrating the season, inviting people to kick off the summer in Whistler, and reviving the historic Great Snow-Earth-Water Race. The race was a hit, but so too were many of the sports we mixed in with the concerts and clinics that made the weekend. So this year we’ve taken it up a notch,” says Darren Kinnaird, General Manager of Crankworx Events Inc.

Making a return appearance, the Great Snow-Earth-Water Race, will once again anchor the weekend with another six-stage, team-based outdoor adventure challenge. The relay includes a ski/snowboard touring leg, downhill skiing/snowboarding, downhill mountain biking, running, canoeing through the River of Golden Dreams, and finishes in a cross country mountain bike race. And there’s more competitive action beyond the finish line.

Mountain bikers serving on a team in the Great Snow-Earth-Water Race may also want to participate in the GO Enduro, now the opening stop on the North American Enduro Tour. Paddlers can take on The Great Cheakamus River Extreme Kayaking Race, with registration opening earlier to attract a field with more depth. And those who enjoyed the DiscGo Disc Golf Tournament last year will be pleased to find it has expanded from a one-day, Tier C event to a two-day Tier B tournament, as ranked through the Professional Disc Golf Association.
GO Fest will still include many of the popular outdoor recreation clinics and arts attractions, which made it such a success in its inaugural year, including standup paddleboarding and running clinics, concerts, fly fishing and sailing. The Slush Cup will also return with high hopes the wild costumes will generate enough cheers to fuel participants through a surf across the ice cold slush pit.

GO Fest, Whistler’s Great Outdoors Festival, is an initiative of the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) and funded through the Province of British Columbia’s Resort Municipality Initiative. The festival includes four days of active programming celebrating Whistler’s great outdoors. GO Fest is part of the RMOW’s Festival, Events and Animation program, and is one component of the larger May Long Weekend Initiative.

More information about GO Fest, Whistler’s Great Outdoors Festival, is available at www.greatoutdoorsfest.com. Stay up to date by following https://www.facebook.com/greatoutdoorsfest, @GOFestWhistler on Instagram and @GOFestWhistler on Twitter.