North America > Canada > British Columbia > Revelstoke > Articles > Revelstoke: A Billion-Dollar Resort

I’m swooping down a delectable run of fresh, dry, light powder in British Columbia on “fat” skis with alarming graphics on them, depicting an explosive wrestling battle between two giants of the ring - El Hombre and Vampiro. It could almost be a metaphor for a potential battle between Canadian skiing’s two “super powers”- Whistler, the acknowledged brand leader, and Revelstoke Mountain Resort, the new kid on the block whose exhilarating credentials we are currently exploring. But apart from the small twig from a passing Alpine Spruce lodged between the elastic of my goggles and my helmet, the snow is so good that there is little evidence of any need for fighting spirit.

Way below us, on the Columbia River, is the cute little Victorian railway township of Revelstoke (named after Lord Revelstoke, a London financier who saved the CPR from bankruptcy), once referred to as the “Capital of Canada’s Alps” and an important stop for the great Canadian Pacific railroad. There are whoops of joy from our small party of skiers, telemarkers and snowboarders as our snowcat guide leads the way - the run is called Frozen Dreams and it’s not just good, it’s “good good”. For the townspeople – and for skiing aficionados from across North America and beyond – their great dream has been unfrozen. The unleashing of the massive potential of the mountain on which we are skiing, Mount Mackenzie, is the biggest thing to happen in North American skiing for years.

A unique combination of heli-skiing (which I’d tried the previous day – “awesome”, since you ask, with one run providing more than 7,000 feet of vertical), cat skiing (in which specially converted caterpillar-tracked grooming vehicles take skiers and snowboarders to the same kind of steep and deep terrain accessed by heli-skiers) and resort skiing are combined on a mountain which by next winter will have the biggest vertical drop in the continent. A billion dollar super-resort in the heart of Canada’s snowiest region, which receives between 40 and 60 feet of snow each year, has been born.

“Heli-skiing, cat skiing, cross-country, back country, snowshoeing and downhill skiing can all be enjoyed almost on the same day if you’ve a mind to” says the town’s mayor, Mark McKee. “It’s caused a great sigh of relief to see the resort open at last, with all its opportunities and jobs which will help stop youngsters leaving town to find work.” Even those locals who are apprehensive seem to accept the inevitable. As a leader article in the town’s local arts and culture freesheet Reved! put it: “There may be things about a mega-resort in our town that I don’t agree with, but this resort is standing too confidently over our town now to have its pending success threatened by a bad snow year. With over 1300 season passes sold in a town of 8500, it would appear that more and more people are seeing the positive side of the inevitable. Whether you’re for or against the development, it can’t hurt to wish for snow!” That wish has been well and truly granted.

When it opened on a snowy December day with 2000 people looking on, Revelstoke Mountain Resort had been more than 20 years in the making. Although some Revelstokians had reservations, the town council, realising that significant prosperity was never going to come from the diminishing lumber industry or the railway, backed the scheme enthusiastically.

RMR played a trump card by purchasing Selkirk Tangiers Helicopter skiing, a major player operating locally, to add to its impressive armory. After installing “The Revelation” - almost two miles of gleaming new eight-person Swiss gondolas, ($22 million worth) running along some 15 tons of cable - as well as a new high-speed quad chair (The Stoke), the resort’s potential to attract skiers and snowboarders of every category was quickly confirmed. Hot-shot skiers and snowboarders, family groups from all over North America and heli-skiers curious to see what this three-in-one mountain had to offer started showing up at the new base lodge. Some came for a day or so to see what all the fuss was about and ended up staying a week or more, swearing they would be back. They were, to use the resort’s marketing slogan, “stoked” by Revelstoke’s high alpine bowls and varied terrain.

RMR seems to have it all and the charming little township of Revelstoke (population 8500) will never be the same. Skiing has always been a way of life here in the heart of the Columbia Mountains, but until now it had never been mainstream. In a snow-laden valley between two spectacular mountain ranges, the Monashees and the Selkirks, Revelstoke had long been a celebrated location for the crème de la crème of skiing experiences: heli-skiing.

Many of the practitioners of this somewhat elitist sport are wealthy masters of the universe, escaping the pressures of life in the ultra-fast lane to spend a week or two being conveniently uplifted, both spiritually and literally. In the spectacular peaks of mountain wilderness they lap up mile after mile of deep, steep and virginal powder. For them the weekly cost of anything from around $5,000 - $7000 Canadian was rarely worth a second thought.

With two major players, Canadian Mountain Holidays and Selkirk Tangiers Heli-skiing, Revelstoke had enjoyed a reputation as the heli-skiing capital of the world. But in terms of “ordinary” skiing – the kind enjoyed by local families in search of a traditional day “on the hill” that would not cost the earth - Revelstoke had little to offer except what on the surface at least was a ma-and-pa hill known as Powder Springs at the base of Mount Mackenzie. It had just two lifts, one of which – a rather ancient double chair - was known affectionately as the Powder Slug. There was also a cat-skiing operation on part of the mountain. Today the lead cat-skiing guide, Rochus “Pokus” Schneble leads a team of lumberjacks during the summer months whose task is thinning out the trees to make the gladed runs more skiable in the winter. They are known as the glade-iators.

The only time the illustrious band of heli-skiers might be aware of the quaint little set-up at Powder Springs would be on a so-called “down” day when severe weather grounded their helicopters and they were able to visit this local ski hill to avoid wondering what to do with their pent up adrenalin if skiing was not on the menu.

What few people realised, apart from the locals and a few other cognoscenti, was that Mount Mackenzie was actually a behemoth in the making. It is this superb “hill” – still very much a work in progress - that is being developed in such spectacular style that it should become a world beater, eclipsing many established North American ski areas and even challenging Whistler and Vail, Colorado for the title of the best ski area in the continent.

Mount Mackenzie is a skiers’ dream, with a vertical drop worthy of almost any mainstream European resort (most North American trails are not as long as those in the Alps), consistently steep and challenging pitches, superb backcountry, and – most importantly - an abundance of deep, dry BC powder. “If you like tree skiing and you like snow that’s what you’re going to get” says Alan Simpson, son of the principal owner, Don Simpson, from Colorado – chairman-emeritus of the Denver-based Simpson Housing company. Add the unique combination of heli-skiing and cat skiing as well as an extensive arena of “conventional” skiing, and you have all the ingredients of a true global super-resort.

At the helm of what will be a 15 – 20 year project, financed by consortium including four major investors, is Paul Skelton, an amiable Australian workaholic affectionately known as “Bones”. In almost 25 years in the business, Skelton, President of the Revelstoke Mountain Resort Partnership, has done just about everything possible in the ski industry. He started at Blackcomb (which later absorbed Whistler) as a snowcat driver grooming the slopes, moved on to the ski patrol, then became the resort’s avalanche forecaster and finally assistant manager. After a spell as a heli-skiing guide, Skelton became Whistler’s mountain manager, where he collected valuable experience of capital development programmes including lift design, cutting new trails and snowmaking development.

He became involved with the Revelstoke project in 2001, coordinating the design and construction of the ski area trails, lifts and access roads, as well as the design of a completely new three-level ski village and the inevitable golf course. A lot of the details are stored in his overactive mind, which might not give him sleepless nights but certainly gets him out of bed most mornings before dawn. In his spare time (currently minimal) he flies his beloved Cessna 206. If he hadn’t been a ski boss, he says, he’d have loved to have been a bush pilot, ferrying people around lumber camps or mining camps. It is important that he flies safely – a lot is resting on his shoulders. “But if anything were to happen to me, you’d only need to ask Michelle, my wife” he says. “She’s pretty clued up about all the planning details!

“This is a hugely exciting and demanding project which is harnessing the talents of some of the best people in the North American ski industry. Being in on the ground floor really is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We’ve got the hill, we’ve got the attitude and we’ve got the means. And we’ve got the biggest vertical in North America. But we are not trying to compete with Whistle. We’re going to be a very different sort of resort. For a start we have an established old town at our base, a real town with families going back generations – old logging families and railway families. We have fantastic terrain with really long, thigh-burning runs and superb tree skiing. It’s a real skiers’ mountain.

“Our big challenge is how to grow without becoming too corporate. It’s a great opportunity not to be like so many other big ski resorts. We want to remain vibrant and have fun. We aim to stay fresh and keep the common touch. I may be president of the resort, but I want to continue to go out skiing with the cat drivers, know people’s names. “We’re all in this together. I’m the first to realize that I’m extremely fortunate to be part of it all. And grateful to my dad for selling our farm in New South Wales when I was eight years old – otherwise I would have ended up as a cow-cocky (farmer) instead of living the dream in Canada. I love to ski powder myself - and here I can devote my life to eliminating fresh snow!”

On the lower level of the new ski village, more than 200 condominiums are taking shape, alongside a major hotel. On the next level are the plots for family homes. Many have already been sold. More than $70 million worth were snapped up even before the resort opened. On a higher level still, more family plots are planned, only these will have a unique additional feature: helipads. “This will enable families to be picked up by helicopter for a private day’s skiing with their own guide and exclusive use of the helicopter” says Skelton (47). “They can also be used for corporate skiing days. We’re also planning to have on-mountain lodges to enable guests to go heli-skiing and cat skiing right there on the hill.” Altogether more than 5,000 homes are planned in the next 15 years.

“With heli-skiing, cat skiing and resort skiing attracting so much expertise to the resort, we also want to set up a centre of excellence for mentoring, including an avalanche study centre” says Skelton.

Whether Revelstoke wants to compete with Whistler or not, it will seize a definite advantage next winter when a lower extension of the gondola right down to ski village level is complete, giving RMR the biggest vertical drop in North America and ending Whistler’s long supremacy and USP in the land of the all-important vertical drop.

A further lift (one of 20 more in the pipeline, along with a total of more than 100 new trails) is planned which will eventually give the resort even more vertical: almost 6,000 feet – comfortably eclipsing Whistler’s mile-high slopes.

If there is a snag, it’s the five or six hour journey (depending on the weather) from Calgary, a 255 mile journey. Kelowna airport is less than half that distance. The town is also looking at bringing a regular air service to the local airstrip where light aircraft and helicopters are already bringing some skiers to Revelstoke. But even if takes a five hour road journey, there are rich pickings at journey’s end.

Articles

• More from Arnie Wilson