Nelson's historic Hume Hotel anchors the charming town near Whitewater resort. Photo / Whitewater Mountain Resort
Want a ski day with dozens of restaurant options, high-speed Wi-Fi and even faster chairlifts? Don’t head to Whitewater Mountain Resort on British Columbia’s Powder Highway, writes Sarah Pollok.
“If you’re coming for the nightlife or the vibe, maybe …don’t,” laughs Kootenay Rockies local Heidi Korven, as we walk through the heritage town of Nelson, after a day of skiing at nearby Whitewater Mountain Resort.
“But if you want connection time?” she shrugs, gesturing to the streets that quietly buzz just as the mountain had that day. The connection she’s talking about isn’t the digital kind. At Whitewater, British Columbia’s highest resort base, set in the Ymir bowl amongst the Selkirk Mountains, you won’t find free Wi-Fi or even cell service. Instead, connection comes from those around you, with family, friends or fellow skiers.
“It’s like ‘back in the day’ type skiing, when skiing was about skiing,” says George Kilpatrick, a long-time Whitewater volunteer mountain host and something of a local legend. “You can ski, or eat, that’s it. No internet, no service.”
Case in point, the Day Lodge has Fresh Tracks Cafe, Coal Oil Johnny’s Pub, a coffee bar and a gift shop downstairs. Aside from the rental shop next door and Glory Lodge (a licensed little lodge at the bottom of the Glory Ridge chair), that’s it. It’s also all you need, and makes finding your friends supremely simple if you split up on the slopes.
However, when it comes to terrain and runs, humble Whitewater holds up against big-name resorts like Revelstoke with 1314ha of skiable terrain (compared to Revy’s 3121), and 113 runs (compared to 75).
The catch? You won’t find any eight-person or high-speed lifts or gondolas. In fact, of the four lifts (two quads, one triple and a double), the two-person Silver King Lift was constructed in 1993, and has you riding a wooden chair with trusty metal bars to pull across your lap.
While other BC fields have uphill capacity between 15,000 and 70,000 people per hour, Whitewater is 5700, meaning it takes time to reach the top, and it can feel like you spend a decent chunk of time on the chairs. The good news? Your legs absolutely need it if you’re enjoying the resort’s famous glade runs or some of the most accessible touring terrain. Plus, smaller, slower lifts spread skiers more evenly across the mountain, so you never play dodgems with fellow riders.
Not that crowds are a common nuisance at Whitewater. Its distance from big cities means it isn’t the easiest to reach (Kiwis must fly from Vancouver to Trail, an airport that, admittedly, can suffer fog-related cancellations), but when the powder hits, the city crowds go elsewhere.
In early February, the powder hadn’t yet hit Whitewater or most North American ski fields (that came later in the month). Still, the trade-off was delightful spring conditions, 0C rather than the winter average of -8C. Having skied in painfully freezing -20C powder conditions last year, I’ll admit, I didn’t hate being able to feel my toes and ski a full day without having to duck into a warming hut to defrost my fingers every 30 minutes.
The mountain offers a generous spread of black and double-black steeps, chutes, bowls, and glades, as well as plenty of options to kick it up a notch and tour. After ripping a few blacks and slowly dancing through the trees (as a Kiwi skier must do, to make up for our total lack of glades), I happily stick to the blue groomers that are slightly crisp, wide and often near empty.
All the while, whether on a run or a chairlift, enjoying the inversion, whereby thick cloud settles like a lake in the valleys below, rendering towering mountaintops to tiny islands. “Ski bums don’t die, they just move to Nelson,” George jokes later in the day. Given the views, I can understand why, and that’s even before discovering just how good the food is.
Ski food is notoriously expensive and heavy but at Whitewater, it’s neither. Sure, if you’re after a bacon bun, chilli cheese dog or burger, you can get it. But the mountain is most famous for its nourishing, nutrient-dense ‘bowls’. Specifically, the Glory Bowl, which piles a tower of marinated tofu, spinach, shredded carrot and beet, candied almonds and tahini dressing onto a bed of basmati rice for CA$18.50 ($23). Other bowls feature marinated salmon, coconut chickpea curry, Thai peanut dressing in a list that almost guarantees food envy when you see what someone else got. Add a bowl of yam fries with chipotle mayo, a hot drip coffee and a fudgy raspberry brownie and you’ve got what I’d comfortably say was the best meal I’ve ever eaten on a ski field.
In a world that so often valorises abundance and choice, the simplicity of Whitewater Mountain Resort comes as a welcome relief. When visiting a resort for just two or three days (as is often the case when two days of your holiday are spent in transit), it’s a joy to be able to ski every run, find your favourite spots and return to them. To not spend hours hiking across multiple mountains trying to find your travel group, or be confronted with 10-page menus at one of 15 different eateries scattered across the resort.
It’s a relief to have the excess stripped back and be surrounded by those who also want skiing to be about skiing. Well, that and a dang good lunch.
NELSON, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA
GETTING THERE
Fly from Auckland to Vancouver direct with Air Canada or Air New Zealand, then onto Trail with Pacific Coastal Airlines.
It is then a one-hour drive to Nelson.
DETAILS
Hume Hotel, Nelson | humehotel.com
Whitewater Mountain Resort | whitewatermountainresort.com
New Zealand Herald Travel visited courtesy of Destination BC.