Sun Peaks Resort

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Three mountains, 360 degrees of skiing

When Anne Terwiel first came to Sun Peaks all-season resort in the mid-'80s, it was love at first sight. "Sun Peaks has it all," she says. "Great snow, great weather, lots of natural terrain and great people working there."

She and her husband George immediately conspired to move to the Kamloops area, eventually raising their two children on the slopes – son Justin, who's now a ski coach, and daughter Elli, a member of Canada's national ski team.

Taking advantage of the vast amount of natural terrain ski enthusiasts like Terwiel have come to love at Sun Peaks has always been a priority, says Chris Nicolson, president of Sun Peaks Tourism. "With 3,678 acres of skiable terrain and a 10,000-acre ski boundary, we have the second largest ski area in the province," he says.

The resort's extension over three mountains results in 360 degrees of slope aspect, which means the sun is always shining somewhere, casting almost magically subtle blends of yellow and purple through the trees in the early morning and late afternoon.

Terwiel says that in addition to snow that's so light you can blow it away with a puff of breath, there's so much of it that even after a two- or three-day break in the weather, you can always find a "secret stash" of powder somewhere. She adds that along with a wealth of steep-and-deep runs including Challenger, Freddy's Nightmare, The Green Door, Expo, Cover Shot and Spin Cycle, Sun Peaks Resort offers a wide variety of beginner and intermediate runs. Some classic gladed runs like Sticks, I Dunno and Lone Fir Glades have trees thinned enough to make them accessible to skiers of any level. Numerous groomed runs complement a wealth of others shaped by no more than nature and the skiers who have come down before.

Offering so many runs in all categories helps make the mountain a favourite with families, says Nicolson, but this resort's consistently good snow quality over the length of the season also makes it popular with once-a-year skiers who have to plan in advance and only have limited time to stay. "When you are gambling on your one-week ski vacation, that kind of consistency means a lot to you," he says.

While many hotels in Sun Peaks quaint Alpine village – known for its many shops and restaurants, including a grocery store with fresh bread – offer easy ski-in/ski-out access to the slopes, three high-speed quads whisk skiers away from their hotels in all directions. That means lift lineups are rare, and even when they occasionally aren't, wait time is never more than a few minutes. A lower parking lot allows access to the classic Burfield chair running to the top of Todd Mountain.

If there's one thing that Sun Peaks has developed along with its skiing, says Terwiel, it's a sense of community. "Raising a daughter to be what we hope will be an Olympic champion has been enormously expensive, but every time we turn to the community for support, it's been there in spades," she says. In addition to retaining its soul, Sun Peaks has not lost its value. "We're always shocked at hotel prices when we travel for Elli's competitions," she says, adding that as far as her family is concerned, when it comes to Sun Peaks, there's no place like home.