It was a beautiful warm blue sky ski day out on the mountain today. We hope that you were able to come out and join us for a ski or snowboard!
We wanted to provide you an update on our operations, and share some of the further generous help we are receiving from our industry partners:
New Warming Structure: You may have seen the big tent frame going up at the top of Easter. It is a 20’x30′ ‘Arctic Shelter’ tent structure that has been lent to us by Castle Mountain Resort. We expect to have it there for the rest of the winter for when you need to get out of the elements. Thank you to Castle Mountain for this! And we’d also like to send a big thank you to Bridge Interiors and New Dawn Developments Ltd. for the use of their tents over the last month.
New BBQ Trailer: The Rotary Club of Kimberley BC has generously offered us the use of their BBQ trailer, and so we are working towards having it moved up there. Thank you to the supportive people of Rotary! We will continue to run the BBQ Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. We are getting pretty excited about the great times to be had up there through the rest of the winter and into the spring! Stand by for the possibility of live music up there this spring as well!
New Snowcat People Mover: Castle Mountain Resort is also sending us a 12 seater people mover snowcat to use over the BC/AB Family Week. Thanks again Castle! All three cats will run from Saturday, February 19th to Sunday, February 27th. Our normal cat schedule is 2 cats Thursdays-Sundays, and one Mon-Wed. The reason we run with this schedule is that the cats need downtime to be worked by our mechanics to keep them running through the season, and so that we can return them to the other resorts in at least as good shape as they were sent to us. Thank you also once again to Revelstoke Mountain Resort and Kicking Horse Mountain Resort for the generous use of your snowcats!
New Snowcat Route: You may have noticed that we changed the route that the snowcats are taking up the mountain. Instead of just going straight up the Main, they are now turning left and going out to the bottom of the Boundary run, and then back towards the Main on the summer road. The challenge we were running into was that the 10-4 pitch on the Main was too steep for the cats so we needed to find a way to get them safely around the pitch. This only adds 5 minutes to the trip, but it will keep the cats in much better shape and provide for a more comfortable ride up. Up-Trackers – we have worked to still give you access to Boundary, but please do not cross the cat tracks or blue fence going either up or down.
Extended Equipment Shuttle Hours: We have extended the hours of operation on Fridays and Saturdays to 2:30 on the equipment shuttle up Ridgeway Traverse. Normally we run until 1:30 pm. We noticed that a lot of the school kids are out on Friday afternoons so we wanted to help them get up there, and there are quite a few people still heading out on Saturday afternoons as well.
Night Lights on the T-bar: We would like to thank New Dawn Developments for the use of their light standards for night skiing. They have also provided one of the tents being used at the top of the Easter Chair. Thanks again New Dawn for all your help!
North Star Quad Chair Fix: We wanted to share that the fix is proceeding well. The Leitner Poma experts have been on site multiple times to work with our technical team and have put the plan in place for the fix. Leitner-Poma of America has generously prioritized our fix in their production schedule. Once again, the fix will not be complete for this ski season, but all efforts are to ensure that we will be operating before next ski season.
Thank you again for all your feedback. Please know that we will continue to adapt and evolve our operation to do the best we can to provide you the best experience we can at the resort this, and every, ski season!
See you on the backside!
Ted Funston and the KAR and RCR Team
