Conditions Report
Report from week of January 24th, 2022
It’s been some time since we’ve visited Revelstoke. It’s our interior BC home-away-from-home and a place to escape from Whistler when inevitable snow dry spells hit.
With COVID, then highway failures, it’s been over two years since we’ve visited for winter. Floods washed away The Coquihalla in the fall of 2021 and (amazingly quickly) repaired enough for recreational traffic in mid Jan 2022. So off we were to visit again. After leaving Vancouver, we rolled into Revelstoke after six hours and a bit of easy driving.
On this trip we were hosted by Revelstoke Mountain Resort (RMR) with the kind help of Peter Nielsen.
It hadn’t snowed in a week but hardpack was in fine form as temps were nice and cold unlike the warm spring-like conditions of the Coast. Lake effect was giving us a fine fog-bank show and views were superb!
For a change of pace we headed up the Lemming Line to see how north-facing had fared. Not so great above treeline we found due to wind effect. However the snowpack seems to have tightened up and some impressive lines were getting skied into North and Greeley Bowl.
We then transitioned over to the Ripper Chair and enjoyed the lightshow as the fogbank dropped lower and lower down the mountain. A last cruise down the mountain in good light as the fogbank parted in the late afternoon and off to hit the Sutton Place hot-tub.
Where to Stay – Sutton Place
We stayed at the Sutton Place right at the resort. What a dentist this one is you say! But hear me out.
We stayed in a one-bedroom premium suite. This unit has one bedroom with a king bed, has a den with a pull out bed and another pull out couch in the living room. If you book mid-week and apply anyone of a plethora of discounts (eg Grouse Mountain passholder discount) this worked out to approximately $ 700/night. The unit comfortably sleeps four people and if you packed in more ala sardines six people. Doing that math that works out quite alright.
Now this doesn’t actually sound like too bad a deal if you want to park your car, not drive for a week and save on food bills (the kitchen gives you the ability to prep your own meals). RMR and the Sutton are also doing a lot of things to make it easier for you; for example there’s a free shuttle bus back and forth to town if you want to check things out. In another example, Sutton Place also has a decently paranoid COVID response plan and to top it off, both the resort and the Sutton are trying to make the gong show of ever-changing federal regulations easier by allowing travellers selected for testing to have that testing done at RMR.
