Summer freeze

COLIN MOORE* turns his back on New Zealand's summer for the ski slopes of Canada.

What to wear? It's February. Auckland is sticky, humid.

But you're going skiing and the warm clothes you'll need are bulky and take up too much room in a suitcase. There are odd looks when you walk into the airport shouldering skis and everyone else has surfboards or golf clubs.

This is the way to go skiing or snowboarding on some of the best slopes in the world - with a ready-made tan.

Fly to Vancouver, take a short walk through its flash new airport - don't dawdle too long ogling the artwork or you'll miss your connection - and hop on a commuter flight carrying business folk home to Kelowna, capital of the Okanagan region.

The lakeside city is also home to a clutch of alpine resorts that must have been designed for New Zealanders - not too big, not too flashy, just right.

And then there is the snow. The Okanagan is a bit like Otago. It even has a long and skinny lake and grows great apples. In the summer it is hot and dry on the hills and mountains. In the winter it is dry, too. The air sears your sinuses and makes snow that is light, powdery and deep.

Well, it usually is. It has been a poor snow winter, they keep insisting on the 45-minute shuttle to Big White on the slopes of the southern Monashees range. Oh yeah, you call this a poor snow winter?

In a good year, the smaller trees on the summit of Big White are either buried under the 7.5m of powder snow the resort usually gets or clothed in it to produce soft, white animal shapes.

Big White, the second-largest ski resort in British Columbia, is owned by the Schumann family, who established the Mt Hotham resort in Australia. Schumann bought it out of receivership for $C4.5 million and now it is the second-biggest resort in BC and getting bigger by the year.

Jim Loyd, the ski school supervisor at Hotham, is director of sales.

He says Big White has half its normal snow so the locals are staying home. Good. In fact, there is superb, packed powder and we ski straight onto the lifts and down long, cruisy runs.

At night I take part in a torchlight run. We each hold a flare and ski in a long line while all the field lights are turned off. I wish I could have seen it from the bottom.

The children's centre is something else. It is a mini-resort, where, as Loyd puts it, children can discover winter in a fun atmosphere.

The accommodation, most of it in managed apartments, is all on the hill. So is a grocery store that will deliver orders to your room.

There are 9000 beds at Big White and in 10 years there will be 20,000 as they frantically build more condos and apartments to cater for the demand from investors as far away as Singapore and Australia.

Apartment rents start at $C150 a night and there is always the youth hostel for $C17. In some places, children under 18 years stay free and at certain times children ski free.

And if you're wondering why this booming resort should bother to cultivate a Kiwi connection, the answer is in our holidays. We take them in January, when North Americans have their heads down at work. And Mr Singapore Investor probably wants his apartment filled.

Silver Star is near Vernon, at the other end of Lake Okanagan. On a clear day you can see it from the top of Big White. They used to mine silver in the hills above Vernon and the resort tries to recapture the gaslight era with architecture that is more Disneyland than quaint. Some like the mock Victorian, some don't. But at least there is no shortage of colour.

Nor is there any shortage of good skiing. There are two sides to the field, which gives you a total of 107 different runs to choose from. The back face has a whole bunch of black diamond runs to suit thrill-seekers.

And once you get the lie of the land, it is easy to ski in and out of your accommodation.

Silver Star is an older resort that is undergoing major redevelopment and winning plaudits for also keeping costs down.

Sun Peaks is the new girl on the central BC block but the resort is quickly making up for lost time.

There is a twice-daily shuttle connection to Silver Star and on a clear day Sun Peaks' Tod Mountain is visible from its Okanagan competitors. Look hard enough and you might even spot Nancy Greene, the Olympic ski champion, who was voted Canada's top female athlete of last century and is Sun Peaks' director of skiing. Like Greene, Sun Peaks' village is warm and cosy and caring too.

* Colin Moore skied in the Okanagan with the help of Canada 3000, WestJet, Canada West Ski Consortium and Tourism British Columbia.