Silverstar, BC Conditions Report: Stop 1 Powder Highway Tour

Tom and Jen’s BC Ski Safari

Stop 1: Silver Star Mountain Resort

My wife and I have decided to spend three weeks tripping through interior British Columbia looking for the best ski experiences on offer. The best skiing, the best coffee, the best food and the local characters that make each destination unique. Leaving hot and humid Sydney Australia behind we arrived at our first stop Silver Star to find beautiful dry snow and uncrowded slopes.

Silverstar is a charming village resort that at first glimpse looks like something out of a fairytale. Coloured houses, snow laden roofs and wide open groomed runs the width of international runways. This season the locals say the snow pack is lower than usual but it wasn’t that evident when we explored the frontside of the mountain finding soft groomers and plenty of coverage to explore the great tree runs of Silver Woods. Local Cam Sorenson who runs the Bike Park in Summer was loving the grooming down BX Express, laying over some big carve turns in the grippy snow. Jenny was also finding some fun fast snow down Northstar.

Warmed up and ready for some more challenging runs we headed over to the “dark side” of Silver Star notorious for its many double black runs. As you can see from the trail map there is hardly a blue line to be seen. With its northerly aspect the snow was dry and soft with small pockets of fresh snow on the side of most runs. The pick of the runs we skied were Kassanova into Chute 5, Gong Show, Three wise men and the amazing steep groomed black run Bon Diablo. Not many places in the world where you can lay trenches on such a perfectly groomed steep pitch with no other people in sight. In fact nearly the whole time on the backside we skied with the entire run to ourselves and would then just ski straight onto the lift for another loop. Some of the steeper pitches of the double blacks did need more snow coverage but for the most part you could ski quite aggressively without any worry. 

So looking back on our first stop of the safari I would say these are the top recommendations whilst visiting Silver Star:

-The best Coffee was from Town Hall. Great baristas that make a great piccolo.
-Ski Silverwoods area on the weekend, there is no one there and you have choices of great groomers or wide spaced tree runs.
-Top choice for eating out; it was hard to choose between Long Johns for the Back hand of God Ribs or the Chicken supreme with garden vegetables at the Bulldog. 

-Eat in one night and order from Isidore’s Kitchen. A Swiss chef obsessed with Telemark and making delicious food you only need to heat up when you’ve finished hot tubbing. 

-Spend some time exploring the backside of the mountain. There are some seriously fun gullies to ski and really interesting steep terrain.

-Take a pair of skis that can carve well. The groomers are incredibly fun.

-Lunch is hard to pass up at bugaboos bakery and meeting Frank, Dutch Royalty. 

So its now time to hit the powder highway and onto Red Mountain!