When I looked at the ski resorts in Canada I was a little astonished that they have in average not more than a couple of lifts. For example Revelstoke Mountain Resort has only three lifts, one gondola and two chair lifts. But those three lifts cover over 1800 m of altitude and an area of 12 square km, that is an incredible huge area.
This is the area of the ski resort compared to the size of a town.
I have spend now four days up on the mountain and had one of my best powder days ever. The snow here is amazing and this is I surely the reason why you come here to go skiing. I got lucky and had three days with at least 10cm of new snow every day. Even when the snow at the valley bottom at 500m was a little bit heavy, at the top at 2300m the snow was light and dry.
At the top you can chose weather you go down on groomed runs, take some tree runs or you climb for some minutes and get access to some really challenging alpine terrain. That is where the resort shows its huge potential. You have almost uncountable lines – choose between challengingdifficult steep bowls onthe north side or a wide open areas on the south side. The more time you spend in the resort the more options you find. So its easy to spend a whole season and don’t get tired of the terrain. When you finally had enough for the day, there is a run from top to bottom which takes away your breath – it is so long that you can’t go down without a break.
Trough there are only three lifts, the capacity of the resort is not to big. But there are rarely long lines before the lift – maybe you have to wait some 5 minutes. The positive side is that you still find some great powder spots in the afternoon and I am always surprised when I find some powder lines on my last run down.
The first day I was up, it was snowing but surprisingly the visibility was pretty good. The reason for this phenomena is that the tree line is at about 2200 m. So the visibility stay quite good till there, the down side is that the resort hast little alpine terrain. So most Canadians don’t look for the sunny day – they want the snowy day where there is a lot of powder and that’s what most days are. The sunny days are really rare in this area.
All together I am really positive surprised. The resort hast everything you’re looking for as a advanced skier or snowboarder. Especially when you get fresh snow you have a lot of fun trough the whole day with easy access to great tree skiing and steep powder lines.
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