Executives at Big White Ski Resort near Kelowna, British Columbia can be forgiven for being a bit smug this season.
The resort is covered in thick, deep, white, powdery, dry snow.
“We’re lucky,” says Big White director of sales Jim Loyd.
“We have the white stuff while it’s been a lean year for snow in most parts of North America and Europe.”
Big White brags about its ‘champagne’ powder because it’s the type of natural, light, dry and fluffy snow that skiers crave.
“It’s the kind of snow you can’t make a snowball out of because it’s so dry,” explains Loyd.
“It’s a dream to ski on and your skis don’t even make any noise going through it.”
Big White’s land-locked geography west of the Rocky Mountains and east of the Coast Mountains means most of the moisture has already been zapped out of the air by those ranges.
By the time Big White gets its annual 25 feet of snow its gorgeous dry stuff.
These kinds of attributes have earned Big White an armful of awards from ‘best snow in North America’ from Conde Nast Traveler magazine to one of the top 5 family ski resorts in the world, according to the U.K.’s Sunday Times newspaper.
Rather than just take their word for it, me, my wife and our daughter make a beeline for Serwa’s.
We’ve been told it’s the most family-friendly and longest run at Big White.
And Serwa’s – named after resort co-founder Cliff Serwa – doesn’t disappoint.
After sliding off the Ridge Rocket Express – the high-speed quadruple-seater chairlift – we turn left and stand awed at the top of Serwa’s.
The run stretches almost two miles and curves and undulates down a chute covered in powdery snow bordered by ‘snow ghosts’ – evergreen trees shrouded in yet more powdery snow.
If you ski you get it.
The ride down Serwa’s is exhilarating – even if it is classified as an easy run.
We don’t speak.
We don’t have to.
My nine-year-old daughter’s furtive glance and wide smile says it all when we briefly stop to catch our breath on a mid-mountain ridge before hurling ourselves downward once again.
When we get to the bottom we have time to chat about what a great run it is; how perfect the new snow is; how the Monashee Mountains and glade scenery is stunning; and how we want to do it again and again and again.
Of course, we repeat Serwa’s.
But with 16 lifts servicing 120 runs over 3,000 acres on a mountain face with 2,600 feet vertical drop we also have to ski runs with such idyllic names as Easy Out, Highway 33, Hummingbird, Perfection, Squirrel, Meadowlark and Happy Valley Way.
Big White also has great ski-in ski-out infrastructure.
What that means is every hotel, condominium project, chalet, restaurant, shop and ticket station is on a ski run meaning literally you can ski right up everything, no bus and no traipsing required.
And Big White is uncrowded, but still has all the sophisticated amenities.
The base village has hotels, condominiums and chalets of every star to sleep 17,000; there’s numerous shops and restaurants; spas; and diversions such as ice climbing, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, dog-sledding, cross-country skiing, horse-drawn sledge rides and hockey and skating on Canada’s highest outdoor rink (at the mountain’s base at 5,000 foot elevation).