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The Revelstoke Club Cabins (conceptual)
A vernacular that is reflective of a proud Canadian mountain heritage
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Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Friday, April 10, 2009
Aksel Lund Svindal visits RMR
2009 World Cup Champion Aksel Lund Svindal was heli-skiing near Revelstoke on the weekend. He dropped by the zone finals hosted by the Revelstoke Ski Club at Revelstoke Mountain Resort where he did a forerun on the course, managing the best time despite his powder skis and freeski outfit.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Architects and Designers of Interest
Sunday, March 8, 2009
History about the Town and Ski Hill
From the turn of the 19th century, the town of Revelstoke, located halfway between Vancouver and Calgary on the Trans-Canada Highway, has been North America's prodigal, but somehow overlooked, ski-town darling. The site of a burgeoning ski-jumping scene during the 1920s and 1930s and the destination of choice for both heli-skiers and backcountry ski tourers from the 1980s onwards, it's ironic that Revelstoke hasn't matured into a resort signpost sooner.
While Revelstoke may only now be realizing its potential, none of its promise has diminished throughout the trials and tribulations of the numerous attempts to bring this resort to pass; it's a promise held fast in the hulking 2,450-metre Mount Mackenzie, with its perfectly angled slopes, bowls and trees buried under an annual 12 to 18 metres of some of the earth's best snow. That promise wasn't going anywhere.
A sleepy town of 8,000 people, crouched beside the mighty Columbia River, Revelstoke is held hostage by the awe-inspiring Monashee and Selkirk Mountains. An air of nostalgia lingers in the slow-paced streets and Victorian architecture of the town center, where weathered mountain guides and bent-back loggers seek respite inside the few chic cafés that have sprouted in recent years. In the winter, snow falls almost constantly, and for locals, the metallic scraping of the snowplough is as natural as the sound of waves to seaside dwellers.
Founded as a mining outpost, Revelstoke appeared on the Canadian map in 1885 when CP Rail completed the first transcontinental railway, linking the east to the west. Battling cold, snow and the mortal force of avalanches, the line was completed after A.B. Rogers discovered a pass through the Selkirks in 1881. Named in his honor, Rogers Pass, located to the east of Revelstoke, has since become a world-renowned ski touring destination, but this wouldn't become apparent until skiing had taken hold as a Canadian pastime.
With passage through the mountains attained, photographers and mountaineers flocked to the hotel at Rogers Pass to explore a wilderness previously too remote to access. Over the following years, a paradigm shift fundamental to the identity of much of British Columbia took place: the mountains were no longer viewed as an obstacle to be overcome by surveyors but a playground to be explored. The change in attitude gave way to an industry and culture based on the pursuit of sport, adventure and almighty powder snow.
Skiing began in Western Canada prior to 1890 when a Norwegian immigrant, Ole Sandberg, used a pair of homemade skis to descend from his mine a few kilometres east of Revelstoke. On the back of this sensation, the Revelstoke Ski Club was formed in 1891 and continues to this day as the oldest running ski club in Canada. With strong Scandinavian influences, ski jumping became popular in the region, utilizing the steep, natural terrain of the surrounding mountains. In 1915, the first ski jumping competition was held at the base of 1,830-metre Mount Revelstoke and gave birth to a 21-year-old Canadian champion: Nels Nelsen.
A brakeman for CP Rail, Nelsen was the first of many characters who brought Revelstoke to the ski world's attention when he set a new ski-jumping world record in 1916. Over the ensuing years the ski jump, affectionately known as Suicide Hill, attracted ski jumpers from all over the world and dozens of world records would be set as larger jumps were constructed. Nelsen was the Canadian champion from 1916 to 1932, and his legend grew further in 1928, when he and another jumper planned to work on freight ships so they could travel to compete in the Swiss Olympic Games. The dream was vetoed, however, with organizers deeming such "a mode of transport unbecoming for athletes of their stature."
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s the skiing world turned its eyes to the humble industry town of Revelstoke each February for the ski jumping competition. Spectators would flood into town where they slept in extra railcars, and the annual ball would fill two halls. The festivities continued until World War II broke out but was revived again in 1948. The Tournament of Champions in the 1950s ensured Revelstoke remained a major destination for jumpers and skiers until 1974, when the competition finally subsided, thanks to Parks Canada's reluctance to have a resort within National Park land.
In the meantime, alpine skiing began to take root as a form of recreation. In 1962, Paul Mair and partner Don Sinclair purchased 16 hectares at the base of Mount Mackenzie, the site of the present-day resort, and began developing a ski hill. Mair, with a thick accent and thicker legs from years of hiking up ski runs with axe in hand, understood the potential from its inception. "I am from Austria, and they don't have anything like this there," he once exclaimed. "With this mountain, the possibilities are absolutely endless."
Mair installed a rope tow and cut ski runs, rejuvenating skiing for residents who weren't interested in taking flight on Suicide Hill. For 18 years, Mair poured any profit back into the mountain and continued cutting ski runs. He installed a T-bar and finally acquired a used chairlift from Vancouver's Grouse Mountain for $5,000 "to entertain the people."
In 1980, under pressure from other partners who were eager to drastically expand the resort, Mair resigned. Shortly after, the resort went into receivership and was acquired by the City of Revelstoke.
Meanwhile, throughout the late 1960s and into the 1970s, the late Hans Gmoser was pioneering the novel concept of utilizing a helicopter to access the wild tracks of remote, snow-drenched mountains that make up most of interior British Columbia. One of his protégé guides, Peter Schlunegger, took the experience gained under Gmoser and staked a claim for his own "Kootenay Gold" in Revelstoke, believing it was the ideal location for powder skiing. In 1978, he founded Selkirk Tangiers Heliskiing and began exploring a staggeringly large 200,000 hectares of government awarded heli-ski tenure.
"There was a concern that there was too much snow for flying," muses the broad-shouldered Swiss guide. Schlunegger is tied to the history of these mountains; his great-grandfather was one of the first Canadian guides during the late 1800s.
The exploits of such characters has forged a distinct lifestyle in the mountains. Skiers from around the world have flocked to Revelstoke to ski its proximate glaciers and deep trees. A large community of guides, like Schlunegger, have made the mountains above Revelstoke their office.
Hailed as the best tree-skiing anywhere on earth by those who have partaken, it wasn't long for demand to inspire other operations. By the mid-1980s, Revelstoke was the "heart of heli-skiing," as backcountry tenures enclosed the town and continued to fan out. Heli and snowcat-skiing companies spawned, attracting the affluent from across the world, but the local Mount Mackenzie ski hill failed to piece together the right players to bring the dormant resort to fruition.
Another lift was installed higher up the mountain, and throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Mount Mackenzie trod water while almost every major resort development company crunched the numbers and tried to make Revelstoke stack up. Blue-collar locals and hard-core ski bums rode the Powder Slug Express, as it was ironically tagged, alongside bankers, doctors and dot-comers who flocked to the area to heli-ski, but the anticipated boom of a fully-fledged resort never eventuated. Like a stairway that stopped a quarter of the way to the top, the Slug teased more than it delivered.
The lower lift was condemned in 1997, and the city rejected plans to spend money repairing it. This left powder revellers low and dry –– or perhaps wet –– as there was no way to reach the functioning upper lift.
The ski hill changed management again, and an access road to the Powder Slug was pushed in order to keep it open. Running under the name of Powder Springs, $99 season passes juxtaposed the exorbitantly expensive helicopter flights leaving from town, but it filled the lodge with schoolchildren mid-week and families on weekends.
Revelstoke gets drier snow than Whistler, but in similarly copious amounts, a milder climate than the Rockies, and a rich history as a ski destination, so why was it enough to lure affluent backcountry skiers and snowboarders but not investors? The prospect of a whopping 1,700 metres of vertical drop, the largest anywhere in North America, was the dilemma.
"You can't build a huge mountain small," comments Clyde Newsome, who managed the ski hill from 1999 until 2007 and owned the successful CAT Powder cat-skiing operation that abuts the resort boundary.
In order for Mount Mackenzie to be the shining beacon of ski resorts, it needed to maximize the potential for the continent's largest vertical drop, an official 1,713 vertical metres, which required a ton of capital –– $100 million to be precise.
In 2004, master plans for a proposed resort were accepted, and a new group, Revelstoke Mountain Resort LP (RMR) announced a $1 billion, 15-year plan to transform Revelstoke into one of North America's premier resorts. In addition to lift-accessed skiing, RMR acquired CAT Powder and Selkirk Tangiers Heliskiing to offer an all-encompassing ski destination with 5,000 new housing units, more than 500,000 square feet of commercial and retail space, and an 18-hole golf course designed by Nick Faldo.
RMR President Paul Skelton, a hands-on, charismatic ex-pat Australian who brought his experience as mountain manager at Whistler to the project, talks excitedly about the elements needed to realize the potential. Skelton understates it when he comments, "It takes big vision and is a huge risk. Pulling this off was a matter of finding the right partners and chemistry."
On December 22, 2007, after 45 years of unsuccessful attempts, Revelstoke's ski hill was realized. A new gondola and high-speed chairlift, along with 1,200 hectares of terrain, had opened to the public, giving way to a new era of skiing and economic development for the small, middle-of-nowhere town with big snows and giant mountains and is reviving interest in the alpine heydays of the early 1900s, enabling locals to get up high on the slopes of Mount Mackenzie, without need for helicopters or giant lungs. In many ways, Revelstoke seems to have come full circle. Many agree things are looking up for the town's ski scene once again, because now –– finally –– there's nothing but a crazy amount of down.
While Revelstoke may only now be realizing its potential, none of its promise has diminished throughout the trials and tribulations of the numerous attempts to bring this resort to pass; it's a promise held fast in the hulking 2,450-metre Mount Mackenzie, with its perfectly angled slopes, bowls and trees buried under an annual 12 to 18 metres of some of the earth's best snow. That promise wasn't going anywhere.
A sleepy town of 8,000 people, crouched beside the mighty Columbia River, Revelstoke is held hostage by the awe-inspiring Monashee and Selkirk Mountains. An air of nostalgia lingers in the slow-paced streets and Victorian architecture of the town center, where weathered mountain guides and bent-back loggers seek respite inside the few chic cafés that have sprouted in recent years. In the winter, snow falls almost constantly, and for locals, the metallic scraping of the snowplough is as natural as the sound of waves to seaside dwellers.
Founded as a mining outpost, Revelstoke appeared on the Canadian map in 1885 when CP Rail completed the first transcontinental railway, linking the east to the west. Battling cold, snow and the mortal force of avalanches, the line was completed after A.B. Rogers discovered a pass through the Selkirks in 1881. Named in his honor, Rogers Pass, located to the east of Revelstoke, has since become a world-renowned ski touring destination, but this wouldn't become apparent until skiing had taken hold as a Canadian pastime.
With passage through the mountains attained, photographers and mountaineers flocked to the hotel at Rogers Pass to explore a wilderness previously too remote to access. Over the following years, a paradigm shift fundamental to the identity of much of British Columbia took place: the mountains were no longer viewed as an obstacle to be overcome by surveyors but a playground to be explored. The change in attitude gave way to an industry and culture based on the pursuit of sport, adventure and almighty powder snow.
Skiing began in Western Canada prior to 1890 when a Norwegian immigrant, Ole Sandberg, used a pair of homemade skis to descend from his mine a few kilometres east of Revelstoke. On the back of this sensation, the Revelstoke Ski Club was formed in 1891 and continues to this day as the oldest running ski club in Canada. With strong Scandinavian influences, ski jumping became popular in the region, utilizing the steep, natural terrain of the surrounding mountains. In 1915, the first ski jumping competition was held at the base of 1,830-metre Mount Revelstoke and gave birth to a 21-year-old Canadian champion: Nels Nelsen.
A brakeman for CP Rail, Nelsen was the first of many characters who brought Revelstoke to the ski world's attention when he set a new ski-jumping world record in 1916. Over the ensuing years the ski jump, affectionately known as Suicide Hill, attracted ski jumpers from all over the world and dozens of world records would be set as larger jumps were constructed. Nelsen was the Canadian champion from 1916 to 1932, and his legend grew further in 1928, when he and another jumper planned to work on freight ships so they could travel to compete in the Swiss Olympic Games. The dream was vetoed, however, with organizers deeming such "a mode of transport unbecoming for athletes of their stature."
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s the skiing world turned its eyes to the humble industry town of Revelstoke each February for the ski jumping competition. Spectators would flood into town where they slept in extra railcars, and the annual ball would fill two halls. The festivities continued until World War II broke out but was revived again in 1948. The Tournament of Champions in the 1950s ensured Revelstoke remained a major destination for jumpers and skiers until 1974, when the competition finally subsided, thanks to Parks Canada's reluctance to have a resort within National Park land.
In the meantime, alpine skiing began to take root as a form of recreation. In 1962, Paul Mair and partner Don Sinclair purchased 16 hectares at the base of Mount Mackenzie, the site of the present-day resort, and began developing a ski hill. Mair, with a thick accent and thicker legs from years of hiking up ski runs with axe in hand, understood the potential from its inception. "I am from Austria, and they don't have anything like this there," he once exclaimed. "With this mountain, the possibilities are absolutely endless."
Mair installed a rope tow and cut ski runs, rejuvenating skiing for residents who weren't interested in taking flight on Suicide Hill. For 18 years, Mair poured any profit back into the mountain and continued cutting ski runs. He installed a T-bar and finally acquired a used chairlift from Vancouver's Grouse Mountain for $5,000 "to entertain the people."
In 1980, under pressure from other partners who were eager to drastically expand the resort, Mair resigned. Shortly after, the resort went into receivership and was acquired by the City of Revelstoke.
Meanwhile, throughout the late 1960s and into the 1970s, the late Hans Gmoser was pioneering the novel concept of utilizing a helicopter to access the wild tracks of remote, snow-drenched mountains that make up most of interior British Columbia. One of his protégé guides, Peter Schlunegger, took the experience gained under Gmoser and staked a claim for his own "Kootenay Gold" in Revelstoke, believing it was the ideal location for powder skiing. In 1978, he founded Selkirk Tangiers Heliskiing and began exploring a staggeringly large 200,000 hectares of government awarded heli-ski tenure.
"There was a concern that there was too much snow for flying," muses the broad-shouldered Swiss guide. Schlunegger is tied to the history of these mountains; his great-grandfather was one of the first Canadian guides during the late 1800s.
The exploits of such characters has forged a distinct lifestyle in the mountains. Skiers from around the world have flocked to Revelstoke to ski its proximate glaciers and deep trees. A large community of guides, like Schlunegger, have made the mountains above Revelstoke their office.
Hailed as the best tree-skiing anywhere on earth by those who have partaken, it wasn't long for demand to inspire other operations. By the mid-1980s, Revelstoke was the "heart of heli-skiing," as backcountry tenures enclosed the town and continued to fan out. Heli and snowcat-skiing companies spawned, attracting the affluent from across the world, but the local Mount Mackenzie ski hill failed to piece together the right players to bring the dormant resort to fruition.
Another lift was installed higher up the mountain, and throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Mount Mackenzie trod water while almost every major resort development company crunched the numbers and tried to make Revelstoke stack up. Blue-collar locals and hard-core ski bums rode the Powder Slug Express, as it was ironically tagged, alongside bankers, doctors and dot-comers who flocked to the area to heli-ski, but the anticipated boom of a fully-fledged resort never eventuated. Like a stairway that stopped a quarter of the way to the top, the Slug teased more than it delivered.
The lower lift was condemned in 1997, and the city rejected plans to spend money repairing it. This left powder revellers low and dry –– or perhaps wet –– as there was no way to reach the functioning upper lift.
The ski hill changed management again, and an access road to the Powder Slug was pushed in order to keep it open. Running under the name of Powder Springs, $99 season passes juxtaposed the exorbitantly expensive helicopter flights leaving from town, but it filled the lodge with schoolchildren mid-week and families on weekends.
Revelstoke gets drier snow than Whistler, but in similarly copious amounts, a milder climate than the Rockies, and a rich history as a ski destination, so why was it enough to lure affluent backcountry skiers and snowboarders but not investors? The prospect of a whopping 1,700 metres of vertical drop, the largest anywhere in North America, was the dilemma.
"You can't build a huge mountain small," comments Clyde Newsome, who managed the ski hill from 1999 until 2007 and owned the successful CAT Powder cat-skiing operation that abuts the resort boundary.
In order for Mount Mackenzie to be the shining beacon of ski resorts, it needed to maximize the potential for the continent's largest vertical drop, an official 1,713 vertical metres, which required a ton of capital –– $100 million to be precise.
In 2004, master plans for a proposed resort were accepted, and a new group, Revelstoke Mountain Resort LP (RMR) announced a $1 billion, 15-year plan to transform Revelstoke into one of North America's premier resorts. In addition to lift-accessed skiing, RMR acquired CAT Powder and Selkirk Tangiers Heliskiing to offer an all-encompassing ski destination with 5,000 new housing units, more than 500,000 square feet of commercial and retail space, and an 18-hole golf course designed by Nick Faldo.
RMR President Paul Skelton, a hands-on, charismatic ex-pat Australian who brought his experience as mountain manager at Whistler to the project, talks excitedly about the elements needed to realize the potential. Skelton understates it when he comments, "It takes big vision and is a huge risk. Pulling this off was a matter of finding the right partners and chemistry."
On December 22, 2007, after 45 years of unsuccessful attempts, Revelstoke's ski hill was realized. A new gondola and high-speed chairlift, along with 1,200 hectares of terrain, had opened to the public, giving way to a new era of skiing and economic development for the small, middle-of-nowhere town with big snows and giant mountains and is reviving interest in the alpine heydays of the early 1900s, enabling locals to get up high on the slopes of Mount Mackenzie, without need for helicopters or giant lungs. In many ways, Revelstoke seems to have come full circle. Many agree things are looking up for the town's ski scene once again, because now –– finally –– there's nothing but a crazy amount of down.
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