Red Mt., B.C. 1/28/05

[Tony Crocker]

As we were flying out of Spokane Saturday I kept my reservation in Rossland for Thursday and Friday nights. It was a 7-hour drive from Kicking Horse. I returned to Angela's B&B http://www.visitred.com/fun/ where I had also stayed in 1997 and 2000.

Red had a very localized 2 foot storm Jan. 8-9 which gave it better coverage than other Kootenay areas, more similar to Big White and Sun Peaks. The Tropical Punch did rain over the whole mountain, but not as severely as elsewhere.

It was overcast and cooled to the mid-20's on the upper mountain, which also had 4cm. new snow. Conditions on Paradise were similar to Larch Wednesday, groomed packed powder over a hardpack base. Paradise faces south and had good spring conditions midweek, but off-trail areas were crunchy in today's cooler weather. The other off-piste areas of Granite Mt. were mostly covered but off limits due to a well frozen base. Red Mountain had hardpack and frozen granular groomed runs.

At 1:30PM Angela came out and gave us a tour for the rest of the afternoon. She's in her late 50's but she's been in Rossland 30 years and will kick your butt all over the mountain (sort of like Craig Morris in Fernie).

 

[JimG.]

Nice trip reports Tony. I've heard good things about Red mtn. and the pics did nothing to make me think otherwise. Too bad there wasn't 2' of fluff for you guys so you could drop into those nice steep couloirs.

 

[Sharon]

Wow, Tony, the snow conditions look rather meager. I was there last March and we had fabulous snow, even though it hadn't snowed in a few days. The snow there was still dry and everything was open. We climbed/skied Mt Roberts. There was untracked snow even a week after a snow.

 

[Tony Crocker]

The pic at the bottom of Ledges was not representative. The base, while less than normal, would not have closed that many runs. It was the "look but don't touch" surface after the rain that constrained our skiing. Red Mt. got about a foot last weekend, which should have opened up quite a bit.

Red's terrain is quite unique. If I could pick a mountain to be at during a big storm (instead of Northstar on Jan. 8 for example) Red would be at the top of the list. Most places as steep as Red would have extensive closures. But the trees at Red allow greater visibility and fewer safety closures during storms.