Winter has arrived in Sun Peaks and skiers are being treated to a much nicer opening weekend than last year in the resort municipality.
The 2024-2025 ski season in Sun Peaks is off to a great start, as this year’s opening weekend began Saturday with a 78-centimetre snow base.
“We’re really happy with how conditions are shaping up for early season here, it's a completely different story from last year,” Sun Peaks Resort director of communications Christina Antoniak said.
Last year, Sun Peaks opened for the season on Nov. 18, but it had just two chairlifts and a couple runs open due to a lack of snowfall. Much of that snow was also man made.
“It was a roller coaster basically, last season in terms of the temperatures and the snowfall,” Antoniak said.
This year, all 13 chairlifts are open along with more than 100 trails on opening day and Antoniak said snow conditions are in great shape for November, adding the resort looks as it typically does in mid-December
“It’s a 180 [this year],” Antoniak said. “It was a completely different story [last year].”
Sun Peaks is also seeing good numbers for opening weekend.
As of about 11 a.m. Saturday, the resort welcomed more than 3,000 individual skiers and boarders — data that is based on the number of people who scan their lift ticket.
Antoniak said they expect to see about 3,500 people hitting the slopes by the end of the day.
She said she’s experienced a general excitement from season pass holders and guests that this is going to be a good winter following last year’s conditions.
“We are off to a really great start. Conditions are beautiful from the village up,” Antoniak said, noting that this year is expected to be a La Nina winter, which means potentially more snow for the higher elevations like Sun Peaks.
