Mixing Red and Grey

Red Mountain Resort in Rossland has a huge expansion underway with a new lift to the peak of neighbouring Grey Mountain

This Grey Mountain terrain will be available with Red Mountain's new lift. — Photo by Erik Kalacis/Red Mountain Resort

Red Mountain Resort, a ski hill in Rossland B.C., is growing up. Not that the region hasn’t always offered great terrain and plenty of powder—locals have long treasured the mountain playground in their backyard despite the tongue-in-cheek claim that Red sucks. With the announcement that Red Mountain will be adding a new ski lift on neighbouring Grey Mountain, however, the world is sitting up and taking notice.

The Grey Mountain expansion will add another 360-degree ski experience to the resort, along with 997 acres, bringing Red into the top 20 resorts in North America for terrain scale. It’s no small move, prompting a number of distinctions for the resort and the picturesque town of Rossland. USA Today has listed the area in its top new trips to emerging places for 2013 and it's number 8 in The New York Times list of 46 places to go in 2013, beating out exotic locations such as Lithuania and Mongolia.

“We’re very excited,” said Howard Katkov, president and CEO at Red Mountain, adding that the resort is working hard on the new lift, which is on schedule to open with the 2013 season. “This will be a very significant piece of development for the ski resort and the community. The intention was to make this experience so good that it will attract additional skier visits and we’re seeing that already . . . I’m a skier first and foremost and I can’t wait to ski the mountain. But as the owner and operator and president of this company, and also someone who cares very much for this community, we are cautiously optimistic that this investment will have good rewards for this resort and for the community and the businesses of the community.”

Last season, Red Mountain offered cat skiing on seven Grey Mountain runs. It was the hill’s best financial year in its 65-year history, with business jumping 29 per cent over previous seasons. So far in 2013, bookings are already up more than 50 per cent. With 22 runs planned, Red Mountain is offering an improved intermediate skiing scene, along with some expert terrain, making the resort more appealing to tour operators.

So Red and Rossland can get ready for a busy winter as word gets out that their mountain is the place to ski. The town has recently completed a downtown revitalization and, even during the summer, the streets are full of energetic people, quaint shops and vibrancy.

"It’s fantastic—they really fixed up downtown with open streets, beautiful plantings, sitting areas, landscaping, new sidewalks, new streets and new street lights,” said Katkov. “The merchants have had a good year in the last year. They had a good winter because of all the increased destination visitors. When we increase our business it flows down to the town because our town is so close—it’s three and a half kilometres from the ski resort. So, our success is the town’s success . . . It’s a great town—the community is extremely active in all seasons, all sports. It’s a very youthful town, even for the seniors.”