Revelstoke, Feb. 4-6, 2009

I can empathize with Patrick, because my back is acting up after all the rolling terrain tree skiing at Chatter, which unfortunately requires my crappy core muscles as well as my better conditioned quads.

So I didn't complain much when they gave away my heli seat at Selkirk-Tangiers when I could not be contacted at Chatter Creek. It would likely have been similar type skiing but twice as much of it and I could have ended up in a lot of pain.

I headed up to the new lift-served area at Revelstoke, looking for a GPaul type of day to recover some.

Revelstoke is quite good for the long fall-line groomers. The new Ripper lift, designed to be more intermediate friendly, is still 1700 vertical with some steep sections. They also groom at least one and sometimes two of the long top-to-old-base runs of 4,700 vertical. And there's another 900 below that to the new base area still under construction.

So taking GPaul's comments about "long steep groomers" at face value he should beat a path to this place. There are some caveats. Yes it's groomed, but it's not Mammoth/Vail billiard-table smooth corduroy. And given the length and periodic steepness of the runs, low intermediates are going to get tired pretty quickly. There was also about 1,500 vertical mid-mountain that was in very thick cloud. Thankfully the Ripper and 2,080 vertical Stoke chairs were completely above that. There was some high overcast, but the views farther south in the Selkirks and across the Columbia River to the Monashees were great.

The trail maps do show extensive tree skiing between the cut runs. From what I could see the trees were quite tight (as per my recollection cat skiing here 10 years ago), and since skiable lines in there were packed/bumpy there was no way I was going in there with my back in its current state. Wimpy, maybe? But Revelstoke is no Red or Fernie in terms of tree skiing.

There are some alpine steeps accessed by traversing skiers right from the Stoke into north facing bowls. The gravity traverse leads to just one opening at the moment. It's a nice bowl and when it hits the tree line there are some steep and narrow shots down to a groomed road taking you back to either of the upper lifts. There are more options into the bowls from a gradual hike which looks similar to one Ben and I did at the end of the day at Kicking Horse. I have 2 more days here to try that.

Revelstoke has zero snowmaking, and even though it's a low snow year and exposure on the lower mountain trends south mid-mountain to west at the base coverage is good and the surface is packed powder with no melt-freeze yet. But that's typical in what I call the Great Gray North midwinter. You just don't get a lot of blue sky up here, especially west of Rogers Pass. Good for the snow if not always for visibility. And it is evident that there is more snow here than at Kicking Horse, which is somewhat bony in exposed areas. Though in fairness if you want hairball steeps, KH has quite a bit more of those.

I saw Kicking Horse in a similar early stage of development in 2002. Revelstoke has done a much better job in terms of lift placement and is already a more intermediate-friendly mountain. Beginners need not apply at either area though.

In the morning I was skiing with a very informative ski host Lisa, who has lived in Revelstoke 20 years. In the afternoon I ran into 2 of the Vancouver skiers on their way home from Chatter Creek. They showed me the gravity traverse into the north bowls. 25,300 for the day.


Zoom view of the bowls from the top of Ripper. The 3 specks at center left are skiers who entered from the bootpack. The gravity traverse entry is out of the picture to the right and brings you in below the rightmost rocks.


View of Mt. Begbie and small glacier, named after early B.C. governor.


View southeast from top of the Stoke chair. The fairly short area above treeline drops into trails running the 4,700 vertical to the gondola base. Bowls at top left of the picture are used for cat skiing, and I probably skied them in 1999.


Chatter skier Gary in the bowl. Tree is pointing at the gravity traverse entry.


Wide open empty groomer on the Ripper. Note the thick cloud bank, which was fortunately below this chair.

I met wolfer at 9:30AM for my second day at Revelstoke Feb. 5. It was his first, as he's staying in Kelowna with a friend and decided to make the 2 1/2 hour daytrip commute to check out the new area.

We started similarly to yesterday, but since the Ripper chair had a delayed opening we wound up with 2 of the long runs down to the day lodge before lunch. Weather was similar with the pea soup fog in a band extending nearly 2000 feet above the day lodge in early morning, but thinning out as the day wore on. We also hit the gravity traverse into the north bowl with a similar tight descent through trees below as yesterday.

We had lunch with Ashley Tait, one of the Revelstoke marketing people. She says skier visits are 22% above projections, so the desire of some us to see the new kid on the block has outweighed economic considerations so far. The economy did derail the original Denver-based developers, and a Canadian company has now stepped in to finish the job. The next milestone will be to see how many of the people who deposited on the condos under construction come up with their final payments before they are open for next season.

After lunch there was decent visibility up top, so we did the bootpack to get higher up into the north bowls. As at Snowmass' Hanging Valley the bootpack is well worth the effort as you get a much longer alpine run with many more options. The bootpack is also similar to Snowmass' in being a gradual 5-10 minutes. To get around some cliffs to the far skier's right of the upper bowl there might be an extra 15-20 minutes of hiking.

The snow on the 35 degree skier's left line I chose was chalky but not firm. Thus wolfer's more sidecut skis broke through and he lost one of them and had to climb up some to retrieve it. While he was doing that a group of locals came into the bowl and we eventually followed them to some interesting lines farther down. The farthest skier's right sector is called Greely Bowl (I wonder where they got that name), and it eventually drains out to the new Ripper chair. The locals were out of sight by the time we hit the runout. There was a short plowed section that turned uphill, and we probably made an error in following the trail dropping down the fall line at the ski area boundary. This turned out to be a choppy mogul marathon with occasional rocks and vegetation. Not what my previously improving back needed. Nonetheless exploring new areas is one of my favorite aspects of skiing and you have put up with some negatives to enjoy the positives.

By the time we finished the above adventure it was nearly 3PM, so we were one of the last chairs on Ripper and we decided to call it a day after the ensuing 4,500 vertical run down to the base. 22,400 total for the day.


Wolfer and a boarder on the bootpack.


Mt. MacKenzie with enticing but not very accessible couloir at left.


View down the bowl from top of the bootpack


Wolfer recovering his ski. Locals about to drop in above.


Still good skiing at treeline as we're about to ski into Greely Bowl


Wolfer on a nice pitch


Locals about to drop out of view


Wolfer in lower part of Greely Bowl


Burgundy, the choppy mogul run along the boundary to the bottom of Ripper.

Comparatively light day today. On the hill after 10AM, off by 2PM and I had lunch there too. But with the long runs that was still 19,400.

It was snowing at my hotel in the morning, though not so much on the hill. The problem was that the cloud was no longer at mid-mountain but on top. That made further exploration of the north bowls out of the question. I did take 2 runs in the Vertigo area, which is off the gravity traverse before it reaches the bowl. There are just enough scattered trees in this area to provide orientation.

The other reason to conserve energy is that I managed to get a slot with Eagle Pass Heli tomorrow. It's 27km west of Revelstoke and I had to drive over there at 4PM for safety drills as the 3 skiers at the end of their 4-day trip want to get an early start tomorrow morning.

Pics added from first 2 days. I didn't take the camera in the poor weather of the 3rd day.