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DanoT

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Steady on guys, this is BC we're talking about. Valemount will never happen just like Garibaldi at Squamish won't happen. These developments are just real estate plays by real estate developers (just like golf courses were a few year ago). So many golf courses have gone bust in BC that no one would seriously consider developing a ski resort.

Half the ski shacks at Silverstar are for sale now there's a deep recession in Alberta. Also, there's a deep freeze in the BC real estate market across the board. It will get significantly worse before it gets better.

While I agree that Valemont will never be built and their master plan has several flaws, I disagree with your negative take on much of the rest of the BC ski business.
Here is why:
Last season Whitewater replaced their 2 seat Summit chair with a fixed grip quad and built new buildings for ski school and admin offices and guest services/ticket sales.

For this season Silver Star opened a new Gondola.

Sun Peaks last year expanded 2 day lodges and built a new medical centre while this year SP added a new chair, and also increased the capacity of their most popular chair by 30%, old Burfield Hostel torn down and replaced with new hostel/hotel, 2 new condo buildings are being built. New staff housing building has just been completed .Last season Elevation Ski & Bike, the SP owned ski shop, had their best year ever as did the 3 independent ski shops.

SP has set new records for skier visits for 3 years in a row and the Saturday between Xmas and New years accompanied by 8" overnight snowfall produced a new record for single day ski visitors of 7k including XC skiers. SP also had something like 200k summer visitors.

This year Revy also added cabins to the upper Gondola and they are lining up in summer for the Mountain Coaster.

Village development problems at Kicking Horse and Revy are mainly due to both mountains not having anywhere near enough intermediate terrain and it is families and grand parents that buy second homes in ski country and almost all of them will have at least some intermediate skiers in the family thus nixing real estate sales.

I wouldn't quite say that ski resorts in the B.C. interior are booming but they all appear to be doing well.
 
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noncrazycanuck

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Seems to me most hills are doing ok, Real estate prices are cyclical and I don't see more of a drop in prices on hill than there has been in Vancouver.

either takes a lot of years of slow development or huge investments to make a destination resort.
can't imagine anyone foolish enough to risk enough capital for an overnight success.

Kicking Horse and Revelstoke are on the usual path. Both have much more at base than they did on start up, Lift improvements follow
traffic same as it has at every other ski hill in BC.

Disagree about lack of intermediate terrain as a draw for families. I think it's usually its more about affordability and driving distance for a weekend.
An advanced skier will get more out of some hills but every area I've been there is always easy terrain.
Hills with the most advanced skiing terrain are more likely to make you interested in committing long term.

pretty clear though that along with Fernie, Kicking Horse and Revy are now the big draw east of Whistler
in BC even if the numbers on hill don't yet show it.

Jumbo and Valemount would be be great to ski but easily 15 years away if ever.
 

DanoT

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pretty clear though that along with Fernie, Kicking Horse and Revy are now the big draw east of Whistler
in BC even if the numbers on hill don't yet show it.

when Nippon Cable bought Tod Mt. and started to turn it into Sun Peaks in 1992 it took 15 years of annual cash injections before the resort started to pay its own way. Many people in the ski business that i know were of the opinion that a North America owner would not have had the patience or long term vision to see things through. Fortunately for us at Sun Peaks, Nippon Cable has the long term vision AND very deep pockets.

Of all the major resorts in the USA only Snowbird doesn't accommodate intermediates very well but they have a million people in SLC living 20-30 minutes away and Snowbird actually has more intermediate terrain than Revy or KH.

Revy and KH had best not have real estate sales as a big part of their business plan as 20 and 30 something black diamond skiers are not really buying second homes in the mountains very often. The vast majority of the skiing public ski blues and easy blacks which is why Big White, Silver Star, Sun Peaks and Whistler draw most of the skier visits by offering "family skiing" in large amounts.
 

Joe Strummer

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While I agree that Valemont will never be built and their master plan has several flaws, I disagree with your negative take on much of the rest of the BC ski business.
Here is why:
Last season Whitewater replaced their 2 seat Summit chair with a fixed grip quad and built new buildings for ski school and admin offices and guest services/ticket sales.

For this season Silver Star opened a new Gondola.

Sun Peaks last year expanded 2 day lodges and built a new medical centre while this year SP added a new chair, and also increased the capacity of their most popular chair by 30%, old Burfield Hostel torn down and replaced with new hostel/hotel, 2 new condo buildings are being built. New staff housing building has just been completed .Last season Elevation Ski & Bike, the SP owned ski shop, had their best year ever as did the 3 independent ski shops.

SP has set new records for skier visits for 3 years in a row and the Saturday between Xmas and New years accompanied by 8" overnight snowfall produced a new record for single day ski visitors of 7k including XC skiers. SP also had something like 200k summer visitors.

This year Revy also added cabins to the upper Gondola and they are lining up in summer for the Mountain Coaster.

Village development problems at Kicking Horse and Revy are mainly due to both mountains not having anywhere near enough intermediate terrain and it is families and grand parents that buy second homes in ski country and almost all of them will have at least some intermediate skiers in the family thus nixing real estate sales.

I wouldn't quite say that ski resorts in the B.C. interior are booming but they all appear to be doing well.

I was up Whistler yesterday and I got to thinking at what level (other than price) could Garibaldi at Squamish compete. And the answer was none. What would prompt me to ski Garibaldi and not Whistler? Whistler is vast, has loads of places to stay/eat., can accommodate all skiing abilities, is a year round resort, etc. Whistler's main drawback is the lack of ski-in/ski-out.

I love Sun Peaks and hope it continues to develop. But WB, SP, SS, and BW only survive because of local day trippers.

Didn't know any manufacture still made fixed grip lifts. It must be second hand, no? Still a (slow) fixed grip chair is hardly setting the world on fire.

But I won't complain. We are having another epic year at WB.
 

dbostedo

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I love Sun Peaks and hope it continues to develop. But WB, SP, SS, and BW only survive because of local day trippers.

Is WB Whister-Blackcomb? If so, I don't see how it only survives because of day trippers. And I don't know the other resorts except by name/reputation, but I'd be surprised if that's true for them too - they aren't near major population centers.

Didn't know any manufacture still made fixed grip lifts. It must be second hand, no? Still a (slow) fixed grip chair is hardly setting the world on fire.

All the major manufacturers still make fixed grip lifts. And I think (can't find a source) that there have been more new fixed grips installed in the last couple of years than high speed lifts.

EDIT : Found some stats... here's the @Lift Blog page :

https://liftblog.com/category/statistics/

And a graph :

type20181.png
 
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noncrazycanuck

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you have to remember we live in B.C. our entire country has a smaller population than California .
SP BW SS are adjacent large towns by our standards, but it's one of the reasons the slopes aren't crowded, large is relative .
All have a large percentage of day skiers along with on hill accomadation..
Whistler's base (untill fairly recently) had always been mostly day skiers as well .

We are also spoiled.
At Whistler there has not been a fixed lift installed since the 90s. They have already started upgrading the 4 seater HSQs. from the 2000's
quite understand the thought does anyone still make fixed grip lifts .
 

dbostedo

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Whistler's base (untill fairly recently) had always been mostly day skiers as well .

That's very surprising to me. What is "fairly recently" to you? There's such a big village, it's hard for me to imagine that not being there and the place being mostly day skiers.
 

noncrazycanuck

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that village was the site of the garbage dump up until mid 80's after Blackcomb started up. Still the day skiers where the most on hill well into the 2000's.
As more private homes and condos were developed "Vancouver locals" and "whistler locals" still where majority on hill but since 2010 there has certainly been a big increase in percentage of vacation skiers .

Last year I rarely shared a chair with a day skier from Vancouver, probably the sticker shock caused that.
 

dbostedo

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that village was the site of the garbage dump up until mid 80's after Blackcomb started up. Still the day skiers where the most on hill well into the 2000's.
As more private homes and condos were developed "Vancouver locals" and "whistler locals" still where majority on hill but since 2010 there has certainly been a big increase in percentage of vacation skiers .

Last year I rarely shared a chair with a day skier from Vancouver, probably the sticker shock caused that.

Thank for the info... it is indeed hard to imagine Whistler without it being a big destination resort. But it seems like clearly it no longer relies on day trippers. I wonder about the stats of the other resorts mentioned - Silver Star, Sun Peaks, Big White.
 

DanoT

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Whistler's main drawback is the lack of ski-in/ski-out.

I will have to disagree with the above as Whistler's main drawback is the garbage bags with their logo and the arm and neck holes already cut....that is way to prepared for rain.
WB is great if you live a couple hours away in Vancouver or if you are a double black diamond skier and mostly ski the upper mountain above the Peak to Peaks Gondola.

Sun Peaks is no where close to a day ski resort. Nearby Kamloops, pop. 90k only has about 6% of the population that skis. Revelstoke with a pop. of 8-10k probably has more skiers than Kamloops. SP has 8k beds.

SP is the closest to the coast of all BC interior resorts and it is only an hour longer drive from Seattle to SP vs going to WB and since it is an easier drive, and SP is less expensive, less crowded and has better quality snow than WB, it is not a surprise that a significant number of Seattle skiers own second homes at SP.

Tons of Aussies ski and work at SP and Big White (15k beds) and Silver Star are owned by Aussies. Kelowna has an international airport with direct flights in winter from LA. And direct flights from Toronto, of course.

SP's new Dopplemayr lift is a fixed grip quad that currently goes part way up a ridge. When skier visit numbers grow the lift will be lengthened and made high speed, just as they did in the mid 90s with the Sundance lift at SP which started out as a fixed grip quad.

Whitewater's fixed grip quad (installed last season) was brand new, not used.

I am not sure how many on mountain beds at Silver Star, but Vernon (pop. 40k) is only 20 minutes away with a wide variety of accommodation.

@Joe Strummer, I am afraid that your Whistler-centric view of skiing in the B.C. interior is inaccurate.
 

Joe Strummer

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Whistler-Blackcomb relies on day trippers because it offers discount prices to BC and Washington State residents via its Edge Card. Running a ski hill in the short run is a fixed cost business: you need to operate lifts and groom runs whether you have 100 skiers or 10,000 The name of the game with fixed costs is to maximise revenue. Hence the discount Edge Card. A 10 day Edge Card cuts the day price in half.

DanoT - I'm not feeling the looooove from you: :(. I said I love Sun Peaks.
 

DanoT

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DanoT - I'm not feeling the looooove from you: :(. I said I love Sun Peaks.

@Joe Strummer it is not above love or lack of love, but it is just that a couple of your posts in this thread about skiing in the in the B.C interior are inaccurate.
 

DanoT

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Latest update on Valemount, a handle tow and ski runs being cut:
 

cantunamunch

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I've posted this on a similar thread at Epic; but once I mapped it, Valemount is about 7 1/2 hours from my house. For road trips, it's closer than Banff, closer than Golden/Kicking Horse,not much farther than Revelstoke, closer than Jackson or Targhee, closer than Sun Valley, closer than Bachelor, not much longer to get there than Schweitzer, Red Mt or Whitewater. Other than trips to Whistler, I could see easily imagine taking roads trips to Valemount, with or without a stop at Sun Peaks along the way. Given the proposed size and terrain available, I could easily see it being worth my time to travel there. If the exchange rate remains favorable, I could see taking most of my future ski trips to BC, given I'm already fond of Red, Whitewater and Sun Peaks. I guess I can put up Whistler once in a while.

Cool. I can split gas ;)

Hopefully that's a T bar, not a handle tow. I would never be able to 280m on a handle tow. I can barely get up the one at Batawa. I'm sure it's only 60' and flat.

At least they're not doing the Kiwi thing and issuing nutcrackers :)
 

DanoT

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Hopefully that's a T bar, not a handle tow. I would never be able to 280m on a handle tow. I can barely get up the one at Batawa. I'm sure it's only 60' and flat.
The headline says t-bar and the writer of the article mentions the benefits of a t-bar to back country access, but the guy from the Valemount Ski Society talks about a handle tow. But it doesn't matter to me as even though I am 3.5 hours from Valemount, I'm not going there to ride a surface lift all day as my old legs and knees need a rest between runs.
 

DanoT

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I feel like it's the same old story with these guys..
The handle tow is just the locals putting in a ski area that they can support, while the mega resort remains an unrealistic pipe dream. So yeah, same old story, nothing has really changed.
 
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cantunamunch

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The headline says t-bar and the writer of the article mentions the benefits of a t-bar to back country access, but the guy from the Valemount Ski Society talks about a handle tow. But it doesn't matter to me as even though I am 3.5 hours from Valemount, I'm not going there to ride a surface lift all day as my old legs and knees need a rest between runs.

Bench at top and bottom? Beaver tails at top, beers at bottom?
 

surfacehoar

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Looks like the top of the lift will be around 4300ft. That's great for the local community I guess, still makes for a long walk to the alpine for the backcountry skiers. If Valemount becomes anything, this will be the lift that takes the commoners from the parking lot up to the "village".
 

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