Rossland (BC), Canada – We left central New York with over a foot of snow on the ground and a forecast for a warm week ahead, a perfect time for a western ski trip. The mountains of British Columbia have captured my heart over the past few years and keep me coming back to explore what else they have to offer. Red Resort has a reputation for challenging and interesting terrain. I was intrigued, and yearned to see it for myself.

Visitors to Red Resort are treated to sweeping vistas.

We flew out of Syracuse on a clear day. In a window seat on the south side of the plane I was able to view my homeland. The long and narrow Finger Lakes were clearly visible stretching off to the south, surrounded by a white patchwork of snow-covered farmland separated by forested hills, with snaking rivers meandering through the valleys of the central and western New York landscape. It had been a good winter in central New York with a lasting snow base and plenty of lake effect snow. I recognized six ski areas with their white swaths draped on the north sides of wooded hillsides. I had skied nearly 40 days on those meager hills and I was ready for new scenery and new challenges in deeper topography and bounteous snow on the other side of the continent.

Those traveling to Red Resort choose from several methods to do so. There’s an airport in Castlegar, B.C. that is less than an hour from Red Resort’s home town of Rossland. Castlegar’s airport, though, is known for fog that diverts arriving passengers to Kelowna from which they are transported via bus to Rossland. Traveling to Castlegar from the east coast requires two plane changes as well. One of our friends took that route and was able to land at Castlegar without incident, though his seatmate who flies that route often for business said it’s a 50/50 proposition. We flew into Spokane, which is an easy 2½-hour drive to Rossland and requires one less stopover and plane change. There are shuttle services from Spokane to Rossland, but our travel plans dictated that we load three large and overstuffed bags of skis, three daypacks and three large duffels full of ski boots and clothing into a rental vehicle and head north. We cruised north through Spokane’s business district, stopping for a few last-minute items and a bite to eat.

We noticed very little snow alongside the road through Washington; only patches adorned the low elevation hills here and there. The real mountains don’t appear until you approach Rossland. The border patrol quickly recognized that we were no threat to national security and we crossed effortlessly into Canada after answering the requisite questions. Just fifteen minutes after crossing the border we rolled into the fair village of Rossland and up the road to Red Resort.

WARM HOSPITALITY

The couple who own and manage the Ram’s Head Inn were out to dinner, so we made ourselves comfortable in the lounge by the fire. A group of young guys from California were playing cards and drinking beer on the last night of their stay. They reported that the skiing was excellent and offered us bottles of the local Kokanee brew that were much appreciated after a long day of travel.

Innkeepers Tauna and Greg Butler are a very charming couple who extend fine Canadian hospitality to their guests. Greg’s father built the inn in 1974. With 14 rooms it sleeps up to 32 guests. It is quaint, comfortable, and tastefully decorated, but not as fancy as their website depicts. Since we are not fancy people this suited us just fine, and we enjoyed the small yet comfortable room, the teak barrel hot tub under the tall cedars in the backyard, and the game room downstairs with pool, ping-pong and shuffleboard tables. Around the corner is the ski room, where guests can leave their skis in the racks overnight or tune them at the workbench. A rack of boot dryers is set up for guests to dry their boots and gloves after a day on the slopes. There’s also a washer and dryer. A direct exit from the ski room room means that you can go downstairs in your slippers in the morning, get your dry boots and gloves off the rack, boot up, grab your freshly-tuned skis and go right out the door. Calling the Ram’s Head Inn ski-in/ski-out is a stretch, though, for you need to cross the parking lot to reach the lifts.

Breakfast is a very important start to a skier’s day. Our hosts were up early brewing coffee and setting out fresh fruit, yogurt and cereal. Greg emerged from the kitchen and asked who wanted a breakfast burrito garnished with a slice of avocado. Over breakfast we met some of the other guests at the lodge and engaged in friendly conversation. Stuffed and caffeinated, we were ready to go burn it off.

THE MOUNTAIN

Red Resort’s volunteer staff of snow hosts offers free tours of the mountain, and it’s highly recommended to go on a tour the first day. Ken Piper and Rick Greene were our Snow Hosts for the day. Ken and Rick immediately give the impression of seasoned veterans who have enormous pride in their hometown mountain. We expected that they would take us on a nice tour on the groomed runs that wind their way around the mountain, pointing out the various mountain areas and more challenging terrain while skiing and while riding the lifts. We got way more than we bargained for.

The Red Resort ski area actually contains two peaks: Red Mountain proper, and Granite Mountain. Red Mountain is actually the smaller of the two, with less vertical than Granite Mountain. Both mountains can be skied 360 degrees from their summits of 5,200 feet and 6,700 feet of elevation, respectively. The trail maps are not the easiest to decipher, as it is very difficult to represent 360 degrees of two adjacent mountains on one flat piece of paper. It might have been helpful if there were trail signs on the mountain to indicate where you were. Then maybe you could use the map to see where you are going. For this reason alone, touring with a Snow Host is the way to get acquainted with Red. They are extremely knowledgeable about the mountain as well as exceptionally hospitable.

We boarded the Silverlode Chair to begin the ascent of Granite Mountain followed by the Motherlode Chair, both fixed grip triples, to gain the summit. They are arranged in series to accommodate novice skiers on the lesser-pitched learning slopes at the foot of the mountain. The latter lift literally took us up into the clouds – at the summit the visibility was only a few yards. We skied off the lift to the right. Ken asked if we’d like to take a groomer to warm up, but the four of us agreed that skiing in the woods would yield better visibility in the fog. We were anxious to sample the legendary glades that brought us to Red Mountain in the first place, so Ken and Rick took us over to Buffalo Ridge, which accesses many of the steepest north-facing glades.

There were no trail signs at the actual trailheads, so without guides we would not know what trails we were skiing. The only signs we saw were
at the top of the lift, merely pointing in the general direction. Once you got to the general area, it was just a guess which trail you were dropping into. Our first run faced north, a very steep, double black diamond run called Short Squaw. Ordinarily Snow Hosts do not take their guests into double black diamond glades, but they were only to happy to oblige our requests. I believe they wanted to see what we were made of. I was a tad nervous about what we would find once we dropped in off the ridge, well aware that Red is known for its challenging terrain. It was calming, though, to know that we had local guides who would not lead us into a cliff band. They did at least warn us that there indeed was a cliff to be aware of. This upped the adrenaline as I committed to the steepest and longest fall-line glade I had ever skied.

It had not snowed in over five days, so the snow off-piste was quite variable, ranging from refrozen sun-baked crud on the open south-facing slopes to dry, light powder in the north-facing glades. We found mostly tracked powder on Short Squaw, still light and dry, with a few fresh shots scattered about. The snow pack was deep and dependable. There wasn’t a bare rock to be found. On the steepest pitches the snow was reliable, boosting our confidence as we navigated through the trees and into an open bowl. The continuous steep pitch continued beyond the bowl where we danced through the lower trees. The rolling topography through the forest sports many snow-covered boulders that had fallen off the steep mountain many years ago, forming whoop-de-doos from which to launch.

The lesser pitch was welcome, after huffing out so many turns on a 45-degree pitch between trees. Our seasoned hosts skied effortlessly through the glades they had skied since they were children. The four guests on the tour had to stop to open pit-zips, panting and reaching for water. We poured out of the woods into Long Squaw, a 4½ mile-long green circle groomer that funnels everyone who skis to climber’s right of the Motherlode lift.

That was quite the warm-up! We were sweating profusely by the time we got to the bottom. Used to the brutally cold and damp winter we were having back East, we had overdressed. We also had memories of skiing Lake Louise and Fernie in below-zero Fahrenheit temperatures just two years earlier and thought that we should be prepared for cold mountain weather. I wore the usual polypro/fleece/shell combo, which was too much even at 25 degrees. My companion was wearing a down jacket. That was the last time he’d do that for the rest of the week.

While we cooled off during the lift ride, we learned that Rick is the brother of Nancy Greene, who brought home to Canada the giant slalom gold medal from the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble by one of largest margins in Olympic history. She also won the silver medal in the slalom. The Greene family moved to Rossland in 1946, just one year before Red Mountain opened to lift served skiing.

Our next run was also off the Buffalo Ridge following a line called Needles, another super-steep glade. As we worked our way down to the rolling terrain at the bottom, we came upon a few old cabins that seemed to be buried in the snow. They were built by local townspeople in the late 1930s and 40s as places to rest while climbing the mountain, but now are used for overnights, parties and barbeques. They each have an outhouse and a woodpile. One of them even has a tree swing. These old cabins are poignant relics of the storied history of Red Resort.

RED RESORT HISTORY

The mineral-rich Kootenay Mountains attracted miners from many countries who settled the towns of Rossland and nearby Trail, where now resides one of the largest ore smelters in North America. Many of these miners were from Scandanavia and brought with them their skiing culture, organizing the Rossland ski club and holding Canada’s first ski competitions ever in the late 1800s on Red Mountain. Winter carnivals were held annually with ski races and jumping events. A terrible flu epidemic broke out around 1918, however, putting a temporary end to the Rossland Ski Club.

The Club was reborn in 1933 and the first downhill trail was cleared. In 1935 a gas-powered rope tow was installed and people began to build cabins in the Squaw Basin. By 1947, the club members pooled their resources, raising funds with the help of Cominco, the mining company and primary employer in the area, and erected the first chairlift in western Canada. On December 7, 1947 the bullwheel made its first turn, carrying skiers up Red Mountain in 11 minutes. An old mining building was donated by Cominco to serve as the base lodge. It has since been expanded upon, but the original building is still in use.

In the Fifties, skiing really took off at Red Mountain and new trails were cleared. The ski school served the general public and race programs groomed promising skiers like Nancy Greene. In 1965, the first lift to serve Granite Mountain was erected, dramatically expanding the terrain to an adjacent peak that was much larger and higher than Red Mountain. The first World Cup event ever held in Canada was at Red
Mountain in 1968, at which our host’s sister took the gold for the second time in her career.

After many years of club ownership, debt had been incurred and improvements were needed. The club had become too much for unpaid volunteers to manage. In 1989 the club sold to Eric Skat-Peterson, who just sold Red Mountain this past summer to its current owners, who renamed it Red Resort.

BACK TO THE SKIING

We worked our way out the Buffalo Ridge for a third time, taking the last run of the morning in Cambodia. This run has a waterfall and a cliff, which we carefully avoided. Cambodia is aptly named because if you are in the wrong place in there, you can get into deep trouble. I found this out the next day without out guides, as I dropped into an elevator shaft within Cambodia.

There was nowhere else to go but down. The skiable surface was barely a ski-length wide with dense trees on either side. Commitment was completely necessary, or I might have ended up wrapped around a tree. My skills were put to the test as I worked my body and my skis to complete the task at hand.

After going to our right off the lift all morning, for the first time we went left to view the other side of the mountain and head to the Paradise Lodge. Along the way, Ken and Rick pointed out a roped-off cliff area that had four skiable chutes, or couloirs, pronounced “coolers” around these parts. “Super Cooler” was the steepest and gnarliest, followed by “First Cooler,” “Second Cooler,” and “Third Cooler”. Their steepest and most critical aspects had been skied off, so we decided not to drop in. They looked like they could be a lot
of fun with more snow.

All morning we took our time, enjoying the long, steep runs and scenic vistas. We stopped to chat, took pictures, and listened to our hosts indicate points of interest along the way. They pointed out the nearby peaks of Mount Roberts, Grey Mountain and Record Mountain where there is excellent skiing for those equipped to go into the backcountry. These areas may not be backcountry for long though, as there is a long-term master plan to put in lifts to access nearly 800 acres of this pristine terrain with the addition of eight new lifts, along with a base village with accommodations, restaurants and other facilities.

The sun was shining as we reached the top of the Paradise Lift. Ken pointed out the Mini Bowls, a blue-square glade ideal for introducing tree skiing to the neophyte. In fact, the entire area to skier’s right of the Paradise lift is a wide, open low-angle glade in the sunshine with a couple of groomed runs in between, Ruby Tuesday and Gambler Towers. A green circle cat track swings wide to the end of the ridge and drops gently into the valley, providing the easiest route to the Paradise Lodge for novice skiers.

I put my fat Salomon Pocket Rockets in the rack next to a dozen other pairs of fat skis of various colors. It seems as though everyone skis on fat skis at Red Mountain. The Völkl Explosiv was the most common ski on the mountain. The locals buy them cheaply from Canadian Mountain Holidays when they are done with them at the end of the season. Ken keeps a few pairs of these skis in his locker and offered to lend them to two of my companions to test out the following day.

You’ll find typical ski area lunch fare at the Paradise Lodge. There’s a barbecue on the deck with all the fixin’s, and picnic tables adorn the deck outside, or you can eat inside next to the wood stove indoors where you might put your damp gloves to dry. They bake fresh cookies, cakes and brownies throughout the day, adding a sweet aroma to the smell of barbecue.

Ken and Rick promised fresh snow, even after five snowless days, as they led us down a green cruiser to the ski area boundary where they pointed out the trail to Mount Roberts. We traversed into the woods and found plenty of fresh snow beckoning for our tracks. From the traverse you won’t get more than 20 powdery turns. Look uphill, however, and there are acres of untracked snow in the forest above. Hiking up the boot pack trail for 40 minutes to the top of Mount Roberts opens up whole new slew of possibilities for untracked powder. Backcountry gear, including avalanche beacons, shovels, and probes is recommended.

After a couple more runs off Buffalo Ridge on Doug’s Run and Beer Belly, our last stop was to take the Red chair to the top of the peak known as Red Mountain. Red Mountain is dwarfed by Granite Mountain, yet it also has a lot to offer. The views of Rossland and Trail from Red Mountain are splendid. Just going to the top for a photo op is well worth the lift ride up and the journey down.

We celebrated a fine day on the slopes at Rafter’s lounge upstairs in the base lodge, reminiscent of college pubs with picnic tables and pitchers of beer, and laughing people having a good time at every table. There were vintage pictures on the wall of the early years at Red Mountain, as well as old skis and leather boots, some of which belonged to Rick Greene at one time. He cleaned out his basement to decorate the place.

It was only our first day in B.C., and we had experienced so much of Red Resort with very kind people who are proud of their mountain lifestyle and so graciously share it with people who come to visit. I knew right away that this was a place that I will return to again and again.