 Poster: A snowHead
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Just got back from Red Mountain and Rossland. Brilliant mountain with the steepest and toughest terrain and best off-piste we have ever experienced. The snow was great with 12 cm of fresh on our second day and the place gets over 300 inches of white fluffy a year. The resort currently has 1700 acres of terrain but in effect it has much more as you can ski virtually anywhere, we rarely found the same route twice and so never got bored. Most of the mountain is covered with trees and there is some great gladed terrain in paradise bowl and on the front face of granite mountain in the powder fields. Paradise bowl also has most of the intermediate terrain and is pretty much ski anywhere, there is also some new intermediate terrain at the bottom of the mountain. Jumbo, beer belly and powder fields were all tough but superb black diamond off piste runs, the lack of piste markers means you have to stay on your toes and a couple of times we strayed into double black diamond terrain, not to be taken lightly in this resort. Most blues here would equate to reds or easy blacks in France or Austria, some of the double blacks are as hard as anything in St Anton, Chamonix, or Val D'Isere, expert only really does mean it! The resort plans to open up Grey Mountain (more awesome terrain) next year which will make a big difference and increase to 4200 acres over the next 10 years or so. The big let down at the moment are the lifts which are slow, old and uncomfortable, although the new owner plans new fast lifts in the near future, he really needs to deliver on this as the lift pass (about £190 for 6 days) is no cheaper than resorts with fast chairs that dont break every week!!!!!! Bizarrely the locals dont want new fats lifts as they dont want the mountain to get skied out too quickly after a dump and dont like the thought of their community going the way of whistler and Fernie. From our experience they have nothing to worry about as we rarely saw more than 100 people skiing in a single day. Luckily as the place is generaly quiet there are virtually no lift ques except on US holidays.
Both the paradise lodge and the base lodge are good places to get burgers, wraps and burritos, of typical north american proportions.
Rossland is charming and very friendly, with good restaurants such as idgies, the grind is great for a coffe and a huge sandwhich, and Clancys is great for a big breakfast, esp the waffles. There are a couple of good places to drink such as the sports bar in the prestige hotel, the best however was nowhere special lounge, go when there is a local band on and the place rocks. However in general the place is laid back and not party central unless you can find a house party. You can also stay on mountain (5 km away) in some swanky new condo's but their is more going on in Rossland, we would rather drive 5 mins to skiing and stumble home from the pub rather than vice versa. 5 star hotel also planed for next year.
Getting to Red/Rossland is not as hard as people think as United flies to Spokane via Chicago (£440 + 60 to upgrade) then its a 3 hour drive from the airport. If they do start transatlantic flights into kelowna (Serving Revelstoke etc) that will benfit Red as it is only 3 1/2 hpurs away. We also stopped at 49 Degrees North for a days skiing on our way back to Spokane. The skiing was much easier with the double blacks equating to a tough blue at Red, but worth a day to check it out and the snow was very good. Days lift pass only cost £25. If staying in Spokane make sure you stay at the Davenport Hotel. In conclusion the best unspoiled resort in North America, go before the crowds turn up!!!!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Glad you enjoyed a couple of hidden treasures. Red is in my top 5 places to ski - the tree skiing is out of this world. And so is 49 Degrees North, but in very different ways. We call it the Independent Republic of Northern Washington 
It has some really nice terrain tho, and drinking with the locals at the end of the day is always entertaining!
I'm a little sympathetic to Red not getting many fast lifts. Reliable slow chairs work for me. Scares off the masses and pow lasts longer. But obviously the Paradise chair needs to be replaced very soon, as its a bottleneck, and expansion is needed to accommodate all the new people in the condos they've sold at the base. Hopefully next season ...
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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The locals are now calling it broke chair mountain due to the frequent problems. Personally I do not get their point about the mountain getting skied out quickly as you have to be a local (or an olympian) to ski a lot of the terrain, its the intermediate stuff that gets skied out quickly (in all resorts) and the locals just are not skiing that part of the mountain. But its their mountain so their view that counts.
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