My snowcat-skiing partner comes from Scotland. He’s a 30-something corporate lawyer in Edinburgh and decided to “take a long weekend” to fly out here to see if there was any decent real estate opportunities around Revelstoke, B.C., the province’s newest winter sports venture.

The trip isn’t that big a deal, he tells me. “It’s my lifestyle,” he says. “The globe is my playground.” He’s been to Australia on skydiving holidays, travelled to the Seychelles for the underwater variety. He even went to Kazakhstan last year on a motorcycle trip.

The Revelstoke journey is turning into one of those adventures that he’ll be recounting to his friends for years. “I’m totally impressed with what we’ve skied today,” he says. “It’s been awesome. You don’t get these kinds of high-mountain glades anywhere else in the world. Or at least, anywhere that I’ve ever been. And the snow…it’s super!” A grin slowly spreads across his face. “And the trip is far from over. Tomorrow I go heli-skiing. Can’t wait for that.”


So when, exactly, is he going house-hunting?
I’m intrigued. How the heck did he ever hear about Revelstoke in the first place? Sure, there’s the attractive new resort rising up from the flanks of Mt. Mackenzie and the new village being built at its base. Big vertical. Good management, too (so far). And yes, great snow (when it doesn’t rain and turn the southwest-facing slopes to instant mush).

But the place is a long way from anywhere. Smack in the middle of the great valley that separates two of North America’s most imposing mountain ranges —the Selkirks to the east, the Monashees to the west—Revelstoke is a six-hour drive from Calgary’s International Airport, and at least seven from Vancouver’s. That is, if the Trans-Canada highway is even open. Kelowna is only a two-hour drive away, and you can fly there from just about anywhere (as long as you don’t mind connecting flights). But it’s not like you can leave L.A. in the morning and be skiing in Revelstoke by lunchtime.

So what would induce a young Scot to travel halfway around the world? Easy: an international reputation, thanks to the nearby heli operations. From legendary Micah Creek in the north to rustic Kootenay Heli in the south, the array of adventure skiing choices in and around the former railway town is almost bewildering. “A buddy of mine came here on a heli-skiing holiday a few years back,” he says. “And he raved about it for months afterward. So when he told me they had a resort now in Revelstoke that offered it all—lift-served, snowcat-served and heli-served—I figured it was worth a visit.”

“It’s definitely a big part of the character of the town,” says Revelstoke Mountain Resort president Paul “Bones” Skelton. “Although the resort is new to Revelstoke, the tradition of big-mountain skiing and riding has been around for some time here. And that goes a long way when you’re trying to establish a new business based on those traits.”

The former mountain manager at Whistler/Blackcomb, Bones is an irascible Aussie rugby-player-cum-skier who is extremely passionate about big mountains, big-mountain communities and resort design. And right now he’s living his dream. “I’ve taken so many left turns in my life, sometimes I just have to shake my head in wonder,” says the man who first donned skis when he was 22 years old. “Still,” he says, “you don’t get this kind of an opportunity by just sitting back and letting life pass you by.”


Leading By Example
For the last five years, this project has been his baby. Commuting from his home in Pemberton in his Cessna 206, Bones assembled an operations team, collaborated on mountain design with Chris Cushing of SE Group, and even managed to land the project’s biggest and most enthusiastic investor, Colorado-based developer Don Simpson. It was a performance of Herculean proportions.

“It was pretty much a one-man show,” says a longtime friend. ‘There were a lot of cheerleaders in town. But Bones was the guy who actually rolled up his sleeves and got the thing done. The members of his team just love him. He’s the first guy to pick up a shovel and get to work. There’s no attitude of entitlement with Bones.” It’s a sentiment you hear echoed at all levels of the organization.

For Skelton and his mostly young team, RMR is an opportunity to put into play some ideas and concepts that might not be readily accepted elsewhere. “We’ve learned a lot from the way other North American resorts have developed and grown,” says Skelton. “We believe we have such a gem here that it’s very much to our benefit to nurture its growth carefully. But this also presents some very exciting opportunities.” He smiles. “I mean, where else do you have nearly 500,000 contiguous acres of skiable land—from lift-served to heli-served and everything in between? Where else can you buy into a mountainside village where the helicopter will pick you up for skiing right outside your door?”

This attitude infects the entire management team. Most of RMR’s senior—and middle—managers come from other ski areas in B.C., with the exception of COO Rod Kessler who came over from Stowe. As with Skelton, the Revelstoke project allowed them to sidestep the glacier-slow promotion ladder elsewhere and take on bigger, more responsible roles here. “We took a chance on Revelstoke a few years ago,” says Jason Worby, who, with his wife, manages the food and beverage concessions on the mountain. “And we never looked back. The kind of opportunities that presented themselves here just weren’t possible in Whistler.”


The Promise and the Challenge
As a downhiller’s place, RMR is all about immediate gratification. The brand-new $15 million Leitner Poma gondola at the base of the mountain is the first of two lifts that whisk you up 4,735 vertical feet (this season it increases to 5,620 vertical) from which you have 1,500 acres of Selkirk Mountains terrain to play in.

I’m open to challenges on this, but I would bet a bottle of B.C. wine that Revelstoke’s gondola services the longest, most consistently steep face in North America. It covers nearly 3,000 vertical feet of terrain (there’s a detachable quad that takes you up the final few thousand feet) and it never benches out or gets flat for any length of time. A non-stop run down the gondola slope (coquettishly called ‘Kill The Banker’) is a bona fide leg burner. But what a rush!

That particular rush is only one of the mountain’s distinctive pleasures, however. RMR also boasts a clutch of timberline bowls that are easily accessed from its top lift station. Ski off the chair, and chances are good that you’ll encounter a nearly-untracked slope of knee-deep snow somewhere nearby. And when you do, you’ll discover why thousands of powder enthusiasts from around the world converge here every year for their annual heli-ski fix. The moment you start going downhill, that knee-deep fluff starts to expand until you’re waist-deep in the stuff.

But Revelstoke still has some big challenges to overcome. Its relative isolation is a big one. As is, paradoxically, the rising cost of homes in town—a fivefold increase over the last three years! Weather, too, could have a negative impact over the long term. Revelstoke is, after all, located in the heart of B.C.’s “interior rainforest,” and rain to mid-mountain is not uncommon during warm winters. The base elevation is lower than Whistler’s, and the Columbia River Valley keeps it temperate.

Perhaps the biggest question mark looming over Revelstoke is the state of the global economy. In recent years, B.C. has invested heavily in new mountain resorts, far too much to rely strictly on domestic traffic. So what happens if the American economy tanks? What happens if the price of international travel—both politically and financially— becomes too high for vacation travellers?

The Scotsman scoffs at my concerns. “Look, it’s pretty simple,” he says. “On a global scale, investing in B.C. land is still an incredible deal. Sure, things could go sideways for the next little while. But I’m not worried. I see only good things happening here.”