Where would YOU build a new ski resort?

Drail

Drail

Active member
This week yet another new ski resort proposal was made public in BC. This time around it is Bridal Veil Mountain Resort outside Chilliwack, which has pros and cons, but ultimately misses the mark in terms of much needed new terrain for real skiing. Over the years BC has had many new ski hill ideas pop up over the years, yet from a skiers perspective they all fail.

Jumbo was a hilarious bust and as someone who has been around all corners of the proposed resort it would never have worked.

Valemount has potential from a skiers perspective, yet it's location in proximity to any population base/airport puts doubt in its success.

Brohm Ridge is just silly. Besides the fact that a ski hill already existed (and failed) there, it is too low, ski terrain is less than ideal, and Squamish doesn't want it. Easy pass.

Zincton was a great idea before they got too ambitious with a village and beefed up infrastructure plan. What's next? A resort on silvercup ridge at trout lake?

Closer to home in Nelson, BC, a new tenure proposal just came up for ski touring in Sitkum, Kokanee/West Kokanee, and Redfish drainages. While I am not opposed to this per say - it is heavily utilized by the local sledding/sled skiing community so potential tension is inevitable.

This has had me wondering. This season across north America has made it very evident that we need new ski hills, yet playing the fine balance of appeasing NIMBY's, economic pressure, accessibility, snow amounts/quality, and most importantly terrain limits viable options extremely.

We are skiers, and as much as we want ski hills everywhere, I'd like to think that was have a certain level of awareness in terms of what would actually work vs skiing pipe dreams and/or real estate developers wanting to use a chairlift to nowhere just to sell condos to the rich.

Here in British Columbia we have an unlimited amount of potential terrain, yet a serious lack of population which makes a truly viable location for a new ski hill very limited. The best I have personally come up with is a cat ski tenure on gray creek pass (east shore of Kootenay Lake in the Purcells). Besides the Valemount proposal, I honestly can't think of a viable location for a good new ski hill.

So my topic of discussion: in all of our ski nerdism: do any of us have a legitimate location for a new ski hill that would both please the investors as well as offer a proper skiing experience for proper skiers. Is it even possible to build a new 'Jackson Hole' in todays world?
 
What do you think of the new proposed resort in Squamish? idk if its still going through but its also an interesting option.

As per the valemont resort in chilliwack, im not 100% sure about it either. seems like it could be decent, the lower mainland/ vancouver area def needs more skiing terrain. the abbotsford airport is somewhat close that could be used as a base to get people there as well, closer than YVR. The population is def growing out that way and could provide a solid base for a sustained resort there.

**This post was edited on Apr 14th 2021 at 8:17:08pm
 
14276388:SurfinCow said:
What do you think of the new proposed resort in Squamish? idk if its still going through but its also an interesting option.

As per the valemont resort in chilliwack, im not 100% sure about it either. seems like it could be decent, the lower mainland/ vancouver area def needs more skiing terrain. the abbotsford airport is somewhat close that could be used as a base to get people there as well, closer than YVR. The population is def growing out that way and could provide a solid base for a sustained resort there.

**This post was edited on Apr 14th 2021 at 8:17:08pm
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You seem a little confused.

Brohm is the Squamish proposal.

Bridal Veil is Chilliwack.

Valemount is well, up in Valemount.
 
Not a new resort but always thought it be cool to own and operate one of the upper peninsula resorts such as Marquette or Brule. A little investment in amenities and marketing down state and promote it as a more 'rustic' and budget friendly alternative to Boyne. That'd be cool.
 
I’ve always wanted to buy like 5 acres on a hillside and just have a nice little rope tow park. Somewhere in the northeast, keeping it cheap and staying open at night because that’s not very common in the northeast. I think that would be very attractive to the midweek local crowds. Maybe if i actually have some money someday
 
14276395:Drail said:
You seem a little confused.

Brohm is the Squamish proposal.

Bridal Veil is Chilliwack.

Valemount is well, up in Valemount.
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oh whoops ya i missed that part in your post somehow brain is fried from school. I agree though the population/ proximity to terrain is a problem in bc. I've never found a good spot that doesn't already have a hill in place.
 
My friend just brought up a potential spot. 'The Gorge' just north of Malakwa, BC on the Trans Canada. 2 hours east of Kamloops on the Trans Canada highway without having to deal with Eagle Pass/Three Valley Gap (which is prone to extended closures in the winter). Currently a go to ski touring location as well as encroaching on the tenure of K3 Cat Skiing it will have some opposition from industry and recreational skiers alike, but any realistic new ski hill development will overlap current use.

Cons:

- well used area for ski touring.

- encroaches on current cat ski operations.

- direct competition with Sun Peaks and Revelstoke resorts.

Pros:

- easy, safe highway travel from a good sized urban center.

- base elevation around 1400M, with potential to top out at 2250M.

- multiple aspects (N,E,W,S)

- very dependable snowpack year after year.

- huge variety of terrain including alpine, technical, trees, mellow slopes, etc. it has it all.

- the area is not near protected lands, all crown land, and has been extensively used by industry. ie: the NIMBY crowd won't have much to say.
 
14276422:Drail said:
My friend just brought up a potential spot. 'The Gorge' just north of Malakwa, BC on the Trans Canada. 2 hours east of Kamloops on the Trans Canada highway without having to deal with Eagle Pass/Three Valley Gap (which is prone to extended closures in the winter). Currently a go to ski touring location as well as encroaching on the tenure of K3 Cat Skiing it will have some opposition from industry and recreational skiers alike, but any realistic new ski hill development will overlap current use.

Cons:

- well used area for ski touring.

- encroaches on current cat ski operations.

- direct competition with Sun Peaks and Revelstoke resorts.

Pros:

- easy, safe highway travel from a good sized urban center.

- base elevation around 1400M, with potential to top out at 2250M.

- multiple aspects (N,E,W,S)

- very dependable snowpack year after year.

- huge variety of terrain including alpine, technical, trees, mellow slopes, etc. it has it all.

- the area is not near protected lands, all crown land, and has been extensively used by industry. ie: the NIMBY crowd won't have much to say.
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51°02'48"N 118°48'10"W
 
14276402:ski_salmon69 said:
I’ve always wanted to buy like 5 acres on a hillside and just have a nice little rope tow park. Somewhere in the northeast, keeping it cheap and staying open at night because that’s not very common in the northeast. I think that would be very attractive to the midweek local crowds. Maybe if i actually have some money someday
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ya if I ever move back east (Nova Scotia) and have the money I really wanna do the same thing. Super cheap tow rope hill with a few features, try to keep it open as long as possible etc. I think it could be so cool
 
not really new but for goodness sakes stop delaying cause you supposedly need to build a lodge and all this other crap ski hills have, and give us fortress back!
 
There are already a lot of resorts. We don't really need any new ones. It would be cooler to have rope tows and features in some city parks.
 
I wouldn’t, except on land that has already experienced use that has a similiar impact to a ski resort (such as abandoned ski area or mine) and that’s coming from someone who daydreams about creating their own ski resort all the time. Ski areas generally have a very negative environmental impact and they are often located in super “pristine” areas which makes that negative environmental impact more significant to me. That said would b super dope to have a rope tow park close to denver
 
14276455:dognuts said:
not really new but for goodness sakes stop delaying cause you supposedly need to build a lodge and all this other crap ski hills have, and give us fortress back!
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Pretty sure Warner Bros. would never allow that. Fortress probably makes more money from Hollywood than they would ever make from reopening to the public.
 
Also w/ climate change seems pretty risky to build anywhere that isn’t v high elevation or northern Canada/Alaska (places with super low population). I could only see building lower elevations/more south if all the infrastructure was already there from a semi recently closed resort

**This post was edited on Apr 14th 2021 at 10:49:15pm
 
14276470:Drail said:
Pretty sure Warner Bros. would never allow that. Fortress probably makes more money from Hollywood than they would ever make from reopening to the public.
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do they like own it now or something now??

place has changed hands so many times since it shut down
 
14276402:ski_salmon69 said:
I’ve always wanted to buy like 5 acres on a hillside and just have a nice little rope tow park. Somewhere in the northeast, keeping it cheap and staying open at night because that’s not very common in the northeast. I think that would be very attractive to the midweek local crowds. Maybe if i actually have some money someday
Click to expand...

Get this place started again, Im sure 60 years of brush growth won't be too hard to clear.
https://www.dcski.com/lostareas/viewlostprofile.php?id=28
https://goo.gl/maps/PT2m4XkqU3d73DZx6
 
Not rly a new resort but an expansion between my home resort and the resort on the other hill next to it. Along with a new backside to my home resort.

backside of HV

1000971.jpeg

Connecting hv and the mont

1000972.jpeg
 
14276455:dognuts said:
not really new but for goodness sakes stop delaying cause you supposedly need to build a lodge and all this other crap ski hills have, and give us fortress back!
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I was thinking the same thing. Affordable, good, close skiing, all u could need and it gets pretty decent amount of snow. I think if someone got it up running again it’d do pretty decent
 
14276509:TOAST. said:
Get this place started again, Im sure 60 years of brush growth won't be too hard to clear.
https://www.dcski.com/lostareas/viewlostprofile.php?id=28
https://goo.gl/maps/PT2m4XkqU3d73DZx6
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That would be sick.

Ski Snowpeak up in juniata county has

always been interesting to me too.
https://www.dcski.com/lostareas/viewlostprofile.php?id=18

It would be a huge project but the trails still look pretty well defined, and if you could make it to the top you’d have the highest vert in the state

1000973.jpeg
 
Currently there are two new resorts being planned for Utah. One will be a private club, the other will be ultra luxury right next to Deer Valley.

I love to seeing the industry grow, and competition.
 
14276523:ski_salmon69 said:
That would be sick.

Ski Snowpeak up in juniata county has

always been interesting to me too.
https://www.dcski.com/lostareas/viewlostprofile.php?id=18

It would be a huge project but the trails still look pretty well defined, and if you could make it to the top you’d have the highest vert in the state

View attachment 1000973
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Yea having over 1000' within an hour drive of me would be great. I've heard snowmaking there was very tough because of inversions and the humidity from the river. Also having the train tracks right there to bring people in would be really cool.
 
There's so much pristine big mountain terrain on the backside of Sugar Bowl resort in Tahoe. I've been dreaming of ripping it up there for years but it's not really practical to build a lift there unfortunately.
 
I actually had to do this for my ski business & resort management capstone at Sierra Nevada college.

We settled on Jobs sister, Freel peak, and trimmer peak in s Lake Tahoe. It was all near star lake so we called it “star lake mountain resort”.

Ive still got access to the presentation on google drive so I could post some of the information including stats, photos, infrastructure, etc. if anyone is interested.

it was a fun project.
 
14276485:dognuts said:
do they like own it now or something now??

place has changed hands so many times since it shut down
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No. I'm sure no. I was just being cheeky.
 
Looking to buy a house in the next 2-3 years (southern NH most likely) and one of my "must haves" is some sort of slope in the backyard so I can setup some rails and a tiny-pump track.

Little backyard with some beers, a campfire and grill are all need to be happy and ya'll are invited once this is my reality
 
14276423:BigPurpleSkiSuit said:
Utah needs more resorts honestly, but all in park city with Ikon preferred dining passes for them too.
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Here's my vision for park city.

In the red we have the area between park city and the canyons which is just not being used, would mostly be more advanced blue

In green we have steep terrain on the back side of park city.

In purple we have lots of different stuff on the back side of the canyons and a whole new peak.

In blue we have the back side of brighton.

With this we will have connected park city with the big cottonwood resorts and created an european style mega resort.

1000988.png
 
Step 1) acquire landfill

Step 2) cover it in dirt

Step 3) put a tow rope and some sick rails on it

Step 4) ?????

Step 5) Profit
 
14276682:Young_patty said:
Step 1) acquire landfill

Step 2) cover it in dirt

Step 3) put a tow rope and some sick rails on it

Step 4) ?????

Step 5) Profit
Click to expand...

Literally the Midwest business model.
 
14276682:Young_patty said:
Step 1) acquire landfill

Step 2) cover it in dirt

Step 3) put a tow rope and some sick rails on it

Step 4) ?????

Step 5) Profit
Click to expand...

I’ve wanted to do this close to Buffalo cause there’s some big landfills like easily 500ft of vert at some. Idk if it’s ever happen but I think it’d be sick to be like the rock in Milwaukee with just like 2-3parks next to each other and another few runs. Plus being close to the city would make skiing more accessible
 
14276545:hdubs said:
There's so much pristine big mountain terrain on the backside of Sugar Bowl resort in Tahoe. I've been dreaming of ripping it up there for years but it's not really practical to build a lift there unfortunately.
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There's so much insane terrain on the west side of the Sierra Crest. Pretty much anything south of sugar Bowl and north of Desolation would make for a cool resort. Just west of Granite Chief at Squaw has an especially awesome north-facing ridgeline for a resort.

1000991.jpegAs you said, access would be difficult. There are no roads in there because the terrain is so variable. West of the crest gets the most snow in Tahoe, but climate change makes that a risky investment.

Another alternative is to reopen one of our closed resorts. Iron Mountain on 88 isn't the gnarliest resort, but it's been developed so the risk is way lower.
 
14276551:BradFiAusNzCoCa said:
I actually had to do this for my ski business & resort management capstone at Sierra Nevada college.

We settled on Jobs sister, Freel peak, and trimmer peak in s Lake Tahoe. It was all near star lake so we called it “star lake mountain resort”.

Ive still got access to the presentation on google drive so I could post some of the information including stats, photos, infrastructure, etc. if anyone is interested.

it was a fun project.
Click to expand...

Should've called it Heavenly 2.0!

In all honesty that sounds like an awesome project. The interim President Ed Zschau was really proud of that course last time I spoke with him. It was a big inspiration for creating the Ski Area and Resort Management Degree
 
14276524:SkiBud2 said:
Currently there are two new resorts being planned for Utah. One will be a private club, the other will be ultra luxury right next to Deer Valley.

I love to seeing the industry grow, and competition.
Click to expand...

yeah right next to snowbasin... you have to have a 10 million dollar house, and pay like 1 mil a year just to ski I think.
 
Utah doesn't need anymore resorts, just better accessibility and transit systems/infrastructure to accommodate. Like seriously? Still no ski busses from the Heber Valley into PC? Totally wack. If we gotta mow over some shitty neighborhoods in cottonwood heights, then so be it.

**This post was edited on Apr 15th 2021 at 2:18:55pm
 
My homie has a huge hill that we setup pvc on sometimes but it sucks to hike so we use a snowmobile to pull us up. I’d love to get 2 massive snowmakers and a rope tow there and setup a sweet ass rail harem and a medium sized jump at the bottom.

we can’t use it much because here in PA snow won’t stick on the ground enough to use it a ton
 
14276443:SurfinCow said:
ya if I ever move back east (Nova Scotia) and have the money I really wanna do the same thing. Super cheap tow rope hill with a few features, try to keep it open as long as possible etc. I think it could be so cool
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A rope tow park like 20 to 30 mins from Halifax would be so dope, and I think it would be pretty popular too. I haven't skied at Martock in a few years but Wentworth always takes forever to open and once the big park finally opens in like February it's wicked mediocre. A rope tow with a bunch of rails and like one jump close to Halifax would be such a game changer for the scene in the province, especially if it was open in December
 
People who don't ski will do whatever they can to block it. Traffic, environmental BS even though cutting trees and thinning forest is good for wildlife, higher property values and tax base etc etc.

Its been 2 generations since you could develop anything. Surprised noone has built a building up and down a decent sized hill for a good indoor setup somewhere. That seems like what should have happened by now. But I guess if it had the customer base required it would get snow there in the winter and if it doesn't there wouldn't be enough skiiers.
 
14276906:pinkcamo1000 said:
A rope tow park like 20 to 30 mins from Halifax would be so dope, and I think it would be pretty popular too. I haven't skied at Martock in a few years but Wentworth always takes forever to open and once the big park finally opens in like February it's wicked mediocre. A rope tow with a bunch of rails and like one jump close to Halifax would be such a game changer for the scene in the province, especially if it was open in December
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Definitely! My brother and I always half-jokingly look for places in the area to do it. With the large student population in Halifax I think it would help boost potential skiers in the winter as well and make it way more viable.
 
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