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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