B.C. ski resorts have been upgrading facilities, renovating buildings and otherwise gearing up for what many expect to be a busy winter season.
The province’s largest resort, Whistler Blackcomb (TSX:WB), has invested in the most ambitious upgrade, spending $6 million on new gondola cars as part of an overhaul that started when the mountain closed October 3.
“We’re replacing the 160 Whistler Village gondola cabins with eight-passenger, sit-down, state-of-the-art cabins that will be a nice treat for the 20-plus-minute ride from the village to the top of Whistler Mountain,” the resort’s CEO, David Brownlie, told Business in Vancouver.
He added that the upgrade is scheduled to be ready by mid-November to ensure that the resort can open for the U.S. Thanksgiving long weekend, which kicks off November 27.
“We’re also putting radio-frequency gated access on all of our lifts, which will be for guest convenience but will also be an asset for us as an organization because we’ll be able to ensure that everyone on the mountain has a valid lift ticket.”
Brownlie said the radio-frequency identification (RFID) system will mean that skiers put an RFID tag in their pocket and are automatically scanned as they pass through a gate. If they don’t have the tag, the gate will not open.
Brownlie expects Whistler to have a banner year in part because Colorado-based Ski Magazine recently ranked the resort atop its list of North America’s best ski resorts.
Whistler last year ranked No. 6 behind Jackson Hole Mountain Resort in Wyoming and was last ranked No. 1 two years ago.
Ski Magazine editor Greg Ditrinco told BIV that his magazine asks readers to vote for the top resorts in the western and eastern halves of North America.
“Whistler is the No. 1 resort in North America because it is in the West, which is where all the major destination resorts are,” Ditrinco said.
None of the other top 30 ski resorts in the West were in Canada.
Other B.C. resorts have also been stepping up their operations.
Sun Peaks Resort has added two new alpine zones and this winter will have 4,270 skiable acres. According to Tourism Sun Peaks president Christopher Nicolson, that pushes the resort past Lake Louise Ski Resort to be the second-largest in Canada after Whistler.
Silver Star Mountain Resort has also added acreage, according to its marketing director, Anne Haight. She said the resort re-surveyed its size, discovered an additional 200 acres and now counts itself as B.C.’s third-largest ski resort with 3,269 acres of skiable terrain.
Closer to Vancouver, Mount Seymour Ski Resort has been readying for the upcoming ski season since before snow started falling on October 23.
It has converted some of its lighting to environmentally sustainable LED bulbs that will allow the resort to keep runs for snow-tubing and tobogganing open later, spokeswoman Emmalee Brunt told BIV.
“We haven’t had lighting in that area before,” she said. “Another impact of the change is that it should make the area more visible from the city.”
Mount Seymour has also renovated its 4,000-square-foot, long-standing alpine activity centre, which houses a retail store, rental shop and office. •
