Revelstoke, BC Jan 11&12, 2023

[EMSC]

First day ever here and with no one to guide me made for an interesting day. A bit cautious at times in part due to the terrain (lots of random small cliffs or near cliffs tucked in the woods), the visibility (ebbing and flowing fog on Stoke chair side mostly on the last few hundred verts), and also due to lower than normal snow amounts - perhaps 75% of normal at 57" base depth.

I did do the slight uphill to North bowl twice and once to-the-top, very vertical hike. Temps quite warm at the bottom. Above freezing from maybe 1000 vert below the Stoke chair (I did ski all the way down at end of day). Upper Temps stayed chilly, perhaps mid 20s F. So a good thing for them that they have all that vertical.

Bit of a hassle for the bowls (North and Greely). Not only two lifts and a 'hike' but the open bowl stuff quickly morphs into some potentially long tightish tree runouts. I did figure out the best route out of Greely bowl though by accident.

I'll do a half day tomorrow before ditching to head to cat skiing for the weekend. Sorry for no action pics, too much skiing alone and low crowds (just enough to mostly fill Stoke and probably not even half capacity on Ripper)

Top of Stoke early

Easy North bowl entrance from slight hike

3/4 up the hard way entrance. Straight up and still a bit of a lung buster even though it's only at just under 8K feet.

Tippy top entry

Vertigo Ridge somewhere

Persistent fog at base of Stoke. But none on the ripper side of the mtn.

Upper part of Greely bowl. Lower was longer and wider and generally better.

Never did find o e of the other entrances on this ridgeline.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Revelstoke is low on snow this year (your 75% guess was bang on as of Jan. 8) but it looks adequate on Stoke/Ripper terrain. Since you only skied down to the day lodge at the end of the day, I assume that run was not so good.

Interior B.C. is going to get a warm storm over the weekend. Max rain/snow line Fri/Sat is predicted around 5,000 feet. Mustang's lodge is at 5,400. Hopefully weather will be decent enough to keep you in the alpine.

 

[EMSC]

All the way to Revelstoke to eat Korean. Seoul Street gets a thumbs up:

Sorry it's not quite as photogenic as James Deluxe food pictures...

Hopefully weather will be decent enough to keep you in the alpine.

Crosses fingers.... you'll know by early next week.

 

[Tony Crocker]

All the way to Revelstoke to eat Korean.

Kawakubo Sushi in Revelstoke is excellent too.

 

[jimk]

Enjoyed your photos! Especially this one:

I did two days at Revy in March 2018 with a Mtn Collective Pass. Visibility was so-so to poor both days. Got into North Bowl a number of times, but never did tippy top or got such clear views. I had good snow on upper mtn, but the bottom 3000' of vertical didn't really come into play due to poor snow quality and refrozen surfaces.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Sorry it's not quite as photogenic as James Deluxe food pictures...

Nice ski pix and that dish looks nice -- what was the heat index?

 

[EMSC]

what was the heat index?

I'm not the best person to estimate real heat index as I grew up in a house where salt and pepper were about the only spices used. That said, I've expanded my palate since then (though not to full hotness of others). For me, it was as hot as I can enjoy.

 

[Tony Crocker]

what was the heat index?

We'll have to get James out to L.A. for Howlin' Ray's chicken and Jitlada Thai!

 

[flyover]

EMSC, nice pix from Revi.

Heading up to Mustang? Keeping my fingers crossed for your weather. For the region, Avalanche.ca is predicting up to 55 cm of snow from today through Saturday but freezing levels up to 1900m tomorrow. For what its worth, I think at least twice (maybe 3 times?) over my 6 tours I've been pretty worried when heading up to Mustang with similar forecasts, but Mustang's tenure outperformed the forecast both in higher snowfall amounts and lower elevation freezing levels. Have a great tour!

 

[Tony Crocker]

Mustang's tenure outperformed the forecast both in higher snowfall amounts and lower elevation freezing levels.

2015 was the only time I was worried. It would have been bad if the alpine had not been clear. We took one run on Love Me Longtimes and the lower 1,500 vertical was ugly.

Alpine terrain can be vulnerable to wind hammering. I saw this last year at Island Lake, once at Wiegele and more than once at Chatter Creek. Mustang can get a little bit around its top drop points but rarely once you drop some into its subalpine.

It's unlikely the computer models will capture a microclimate like Mustang's. There's some evidence they get at least 10% more snow than any other place in that region which measures (there aren't that many). Being north of the TransCanada Highway probably lowers the rain/snow line a little bit too vs. many other places.

All cat operations will strive to keep you in their best snow. Sometimes that means a band of 1,000 vertical or less. Mustang has extensive terrain in a range of about 3,500 vertical and the snow is usually good in at least 2,000 of that.

I try to avoid making sweeping generalizations on a small sample size, but I have 31 days at Mustang in 10 separate seasons.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

I've asked in previous Revelstoke discussions and am curious about @EMSC's take: is it a destination in and of itself?

It's clearly a big-league mountain for North America but wow, 4.5 hours from Calgary + you drive right past the Banff areas and Kicking Horse. Is Revelstoke at the same level as Whistler -- where people fly from across the country only to ski there -- or should it only be done in conjunction with other ski attractions (like what you're doing with Mustang)?

 

[Skieric]

I love interior BC and it is so easy to ski 1-3+ resorts on the same trip. Revelstoke by itself could definitely be a destination, however not matter which route you take to Revelstoke you are passing other ski areas. I like to mix it up and go to several.
From Kelowna, you pass SilverStar and Big White is not far out of the way. From Calgary you pass: Sunshine, Lake Louise and Kicking Horse. Panorama is also only a small detour. In addition you have many other options not too far away.

 

[Tony Crocker]

should it only be done in conjunction with other ski attractions (like what you're doing with Mustang)?

That is my opinion, which I've expressed a few times here. Skieric has it right, depending on which gateway airport you use. The other gateway is Spokane, which Adam is using this year, catching a ride from tseeb. They will ski Red and Whitewater on the way. The drive from those places to Revelstoke is a slow winding road and includes a ferry crossing. Allow 4 hours even if weather is good.

 

[vanhanbr]

I think Revelstoke can easily stand by its own, but if you are already planning to visit Revy, a 1 day heli trip is an affordable option that could really make the trip memorable. One of the nicest ski trips of my life was a weeklong trip with 3 days Revy, day heli (selkirk tangiers) and 2 day at Lake Louise. We flew into Calgary.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I had day heli out of Revelstoke with Selkirk Tangiers (1999) and Eagle Pass (2009).

 

[EMSC]

is it a destination in and of itself?

You could do so, definitely enough terrain for at least 3 days plus lots of other distractions in the area as the town is decent sized and thus has lots of other activities nearby. Still definitely not Whistler-esc just yet though, lol.

I personally would always add on other resorts/cat, etc... definitely very remote. the drive from Calgary sucks for sure though. 5 hours on a mix of decent but also not great road. So many 18 wheelers blinding you at night on a two lane highway. Trans Canada is also closed at night 22:00p till 7:00a east of Golden right now so best not be trying to drive too late.

Eagle Pass

This heli option was mentioned a couple times by people in my group at Mustang... including Kelowna locals who should know all the best options.

 

[EMSC]

Several cm of new snow on my day #2 at revy (maybe 6cm? I forget; it snowed all morning too). Skied till 12:15 to depart/repack, etc.. for Mustang.

Natural gully/creek coming out of Greely bowl

Under Ripper chair. Plenty of tree tops sticking up still.

Remember those are Canadian $ prices. Heart attack on a plate anyone? (Poutine).

Revy grocery store: I feel like there is a commentary on parts of society in here somewhere...

 

[jimk]

That looks familiar from my two day visit in 2018. There was a huge amount of glades below Greely on the way to Ripper chair. I'm not sure if the fall line stays decent/continuous. I was worried about getting lost in there. It would take several days to get a feel for the trees at Revy, even just those in the upper mtn. If they put a chair back there so you could easily lap the whole North/Greely Bowl side of the mtn that would be great.

 

[Tony Crocker]

As I've said before, I'm not impressed with Revy's tree skiing. I strongly suspect that whole mountain was logged and grew back denser than elsewhere in the region.

If you want great tree skiing, go to Fernie, Whitewater, Red, Schweitzer, Whitefish. Or to the Selkirk and Monashee cat/heli operators.

 

[EMSC]

BTW, even the cat operators actively log out various terrain to make the glades so open and great. One of our tail guides mentioned that he helped log a whole section of Mustangs tenure 6 years prior to thin it out.

So I suspect that much of the best glades in the area are not actually all natural.