Kicking Horse releases expansion plan

[goldengarbageman]

It’s sad there has been so little added to existing resorts in B.C.
in over a decade with the most exciting expansion being Red and Whitewater. The Okanagan has been completely stagnant. Little for the Rockies... Revelstoke hasn’t moved an inch since the Ripper chair 9 years ago.

Hold on to your panties! There are some rumblings in Golden. Maybe it's the Interior sushi or maybe it's legit rumour. If expansion is real expect to hear something in the next month or two.

[dufferdan]

The financial crisis in 2008 and lack of property sales at KH and Revy killed further expansions for a long time. If you recall, the Revy property sales in 2006-09 were a complete bust. Ski-in ski out lots at the base were being pitched for 300k plus. They sold a handful. Building at the base of both hills is also a challenge. Water runoff is a devil to deal with and every homeowner I spoke with when we were kicking tires said they had to do a pile of expensive drainage work. That is work that you don’t get value for, though every resale house at the base of Kicking Horse at the time was on the order of $1.2MM. At a time you could get a house on Greywolf Drive at Panorama for 700-900k.

Murray Edwards, who owns Resorts of the Canadian Rockies won’t put in a dime until he is certain of a positive payoff down the road. Which means more property sales and houses to be built.

In contrast, Panorama was purchased by a number of more local folks, Calgary based for the most part, and deep pockets. Many have invested their own money for on-hill improvements. One owner paid cash out of his own pocket to have Stumbocks widened into a premier cruising run. They have had teams out each of the last five summers glading areas all over the mountain. Last year added Jeckyll and Hyde to Tayton terrain, this year added Monster.

As with the other resorts, nothing really happened here between 2009 and 2014. Since then, they have added a beginner chair up Founders area to take pressure off Mile 1chair on busy weekends. Plans are for a chair in Tayton eventually, but money is the issue, as always....

Trappers Ridge has sold out phase 1and most of phase 2, currently about 20 houses completed and several more underway.

I don’t think a big condo project gets done anytime soon, but there is movement.

I have said it before, Revelstoke is awesome terrain, but too remote to get the tourists when you have to drive past Banff and KH. Without the property sales, you can’t fund the lifts. Without the lifts, no one buys property unless there is a confidence of commitment by owners OR, you absolutely love the terrain and don’t care about development. But eventually people need an exit plan, so would prefer to have development.


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[DanoT]

Given that the bulk of the skiing public are intermediates and both KH and Revy have little to offer intermediates and given that the bulk of the families that buy second homes at ski areas have at least one intermediate, I would be shocked if there was enough sales of lift tickets or real estate to finance very much expansion.

And to make matters worse, the two resorts are close enough to each other that they often "share" skier visits from road tripping black diamond skiers.

I don't think Valemount will ever get enough investors to get off the ground either, given its remoteness and suspect ownership.

[dufferdan]

Given that the bulk of the skiing public are intermediates and both KH and Revy have little to offer intermediates and given that the bulk of the families that buy second homes at ski areas have at least one intermediate, I would be shocked if there was enough sales of lift tickets or real estate to finance very much expansion.

And to make matters worse, the two resorts are close enough to each other that they often "share" skier visits from road tripping black diamond skiers.

I don't think Valemount will ever get enough investors to get off the ground either, given its remoteness and suspect ownership.

While selfishly a Jumbo development would have benefitted me with my property at Panorama from a financial standpoint, I was opposed to the development, not on environmental grounds, but financial grounds. Too many existing resorts are struggling. Building more money losing enterprises makes little sense.

Like golf, skiing is expensive. You have the committed wealthy market with kids in programs and want a place to ski from. Ontario has private ski clubs on 800’ vertical that have taken this to the extreme. Then you have the weekend warriors who go up to a nearby resort 3-5days a year. Ski bums work minimum wage jobs and buy a pass, so beyond that, they are brown bagging it and not buying much else at a resort.

Then you have the resort travel group. A big trip or two per year. These are the people all resorts covet. But the baby boomers are aging, and their kids aren’t a big enough population to drive that market. New immigrants typically do not come from a skiing heritage, though their kids might buy into it, taking a generation or two to integrate.

New resorts need to figure out how to get traffic beyond the local and weekend skiers in the off times, which are the bulk of the time from December to April, beyond two weeks at Christmas, long weekends and spring breaks. And make it affordable for more than the wealthy.

Some resorts locally are getting there. Smaller being cheaper...Castle...but no infrastructure, so less appealing to all but the hard core as a destination...

The European Alps have a population of 750MM people within 3.5 hours of travel time. Other than Whistler, which I think is a different beast due to scale, no resort in Western Canada can get to much over 2 MM people in that travel time frame....


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[panchosdad]

And to make matters worse, the two resorts are close enough to each other that they often "share" skier visits from road tripping black diamond skiers.

To me this is a benefit, much more likely to head that way with two great options rather than just one. Revelstoke/KH/Rogers makes for a pretty great two week trip.

[Kulharin]

A couple things to note; a lot of the Jumbo investors are moving their money to Valemount now and it looks like it will be moving ahead in the next 2 years... Valemount is the same guy who was pushing/building Jumbo, where as Valemount actually has huge support from locals and first nations... and not so far from Prince George, Kamloops and Edmonton that people will go... I mean people from there go to Revelstoke... There is also a huge opposition to Jumbo in the Kootenays... driving an hour past Panorama into the middle of no where along a road that will have maintenance costs and avalanche control on par with HWY 1 Rogers Pass... I don't see how it's realistic. I'd bet on Valemount long before Jumbo.... Jumbo is also currently tied up in court... sucks that they decided to build Panorama in one of the driest areas of the Purcell Range...

Also the tourist horde has certainly descended on Revelstoke from everywhere... There are twice as many skier visits now as there were 4 years ago and the lift lines are 20+ minutes on powder weekends in the mornings... after the hour standing in line at the lower Gondola. The mountain is far busier now... the crowds have increased steadily since 2014/2015...

But yah the issue with RMR real-estate... I don't know what they were expecting, the town is right on the foot of RMR... Why buy on the mountain when you can buy something more affordable and suitable in town and drive 5 minutes? Also the real-estate is at such a low elevation than it's only ski in / ski out for half the winter and often in marginal conditions... The proximity to town and the fact the base village is only 500m in elevation; I don't know how they ever believed it could ever be anything like the Big White or Silver Star village...

[Sparwood Dave]

If a person wanted to buy ski season real estate, they might want to ignore the crowds and look at Castle in southwest Alberta.
Comparison stats
base elevation acreage

Revy 1680' 5620' 3121

KH 3900' 4033' 2750

Castle 4630' 2833' 3592

Revy and KH have more vertical but only the top half is interesting/usable.
Castle is 2 1/2 hours from Calgary airport with no passes, 75% freeway. Real estate isn't ridiculously expensive.

Here are examples
https://www.realtor.ca/Residential/M...yTypeGroupID=1

[reckless toboggan]

If a person wanted to buy ski season real estate, they might want to ignore the crowds and look at Castle in southwest Alberta.
Comparison stats
base elevation acreage

Revy 1680' 5620' 3121

KH 3900' 4033' 2750

Castle 4630' 2833' 3592

Revy and KH have more vertical but only the top half is interesting/usable.
Castle is 2 1/2 hours from Calgary airport with no passes, 75% freeway. Real estate isn't ridiculously expensive.

Here are examples
https://www.realtor.ca/Residential/M...yTypeGroupID=1

Maybe post the Castle opening and closing dates for the last 10 to 15 seasons.

Or the base, snow accumulation, and number of rain events.

I love Castle. Have skied there since it was called West Castle.

But the lack of reliability pisses off most ski season property owners, that I know, who bought in.

[Kulharin]

Castle usually opens pretty late, often mid December. Not sure how late this stay open... I hear they get huge dump of snows on occasion but also a lot of wind.

[garyfromterrace]

Maybe post the Castle opening and closing dates for the last 10 to 15 seasons.

Or the base, snow accumulation, and number of rain events.

I love Castle. Have skied there since it was called West Castle.j

But the lack of reliability pisses off most ski season property owners, that I know, who bought in.

Exactly this. Though i've only been skiing there for 4 years. I have friends with places at Castle and as much as I really love skiing there, no one could sell me on buying there.

Only my opinion and I could very well be wrong but I figure Castle is always 2 bad seasons away from extinction. A late opening (mid jan) coupled with early March monsoons, 2 seasons in a row and I don't know how they'd survive without a huge cash infusion by who? Maybe the cabin owners who have a hugely vested interest in having an operating hill. Maybe.

And Kulharin, the wind is often the mountains friend. Wind sift covers your tracks faster than a 5cm per hr puke.

[Sparwood Dave]

I thought about Kulharin and Garyfromterrace's comments about Castle and I think you are both right. A bit of my history. We bought a cheap 2 bedroom condo in Sparwood 10 years ago for $64,000 and sold it last year for $71,000. Why Sparwood? Less than half the price of Fernie but we did have to drive 35 minutes to the lifts. We were 75 minutes from Castle and could pick our days. Fernie would have been a more reliable investment due to the unpredictable nature of the coal business (Sparwood is a coal mining town) but we couldn't justify tying up that much money in a second residence.

[skitolive]

If a person wanted to buy ski season real estate, they might want to ignore the crowds and look at Castle in southwest Alberta.
Comparison stats
base elevation acreage

Revy 1680' 5620' 3121

KH 3900' 4033' 2750

Castle 4630' 2833' 3592

Revy and KH have more vertical but only the top half is interesting/usable.
Castle is 2 1/2 hours from Calgary airport with no passes, 75% freeway. Real estate isn't ridiculously expensive.

Here are examples
https://www.realtor.ca/Residential/M...yTypeGroupID=1

Castle is also all leasehold. These places have about 30 years left on the lease.

[DougW]

There does seem to be things afoot at KH this year. Whats the impact of bringing Rudi's into the tenure ? Lift maybe or just housekeeping? The Ozone permanent closure? Will it be open after the Freeride comp?

There has been steady building at the hill since the crash in 2008. Overall in RE the market has rebounded so very few raw lots left on market. Builders have been pretty busy this year. At some point the RE on the hill will push some kind of lift expansion as I think there is a ratio in their permit. Maybe that is why that 4 plex thing was delayed after the land was cleared?

For me I don't care that much. There is lots for me to ski and the crowds never get too bad and are almost non existent on a week day.

[Kulharin]

It would be exciting to see KH do something in the coming years, another lift there would go a long way... Might motivate Revelstoke to do the same, but RMR owners are probably quite similar to the RCR in terms of investing money into facilities, terrain and infrastructure... Revelstoke is probably one of the worst layours for beginners and early intermediate riders Lift 11 and 15 would be a major game changer.

[DougW]

I would love to have more snow making at KH but ... it won't solve all of the problems with the lower 1/3. A couple of seasons ago, the year of countless stairway laps, the bottom 1/2 was shit for most of the season. Was too warm to make snow. All of March and April you could down load right from the top of Catamount. They mined snow from every where to create one sloppy cat track wide path down.

This year the temps weren't low enough to make much snow before opening. The bottom was skiing really well 2 weeks before opening but then we got a to the top rain and lower down went to complete shit. Recovered now . Snow making to Catamount mid would be nice as its pretty thin there early and late season in a low snow year down low.

[Doug from Calgary]

Some info on the Rudi's Bowl expansion. That area always looks great from Fuez, but I wonder if the exposure serviced by the new lift would be too sun exposed, much like that under Stairway to Heaven. From the document, it doesn't look like Molar Bowl on the other side of the ridge will be open. The document also shows a shortened Pioneer chair (avoiding steep portion at the top of the existing lift), a lift from the top of the new Pioneer to the bottom of Crystal Bowl and a lift from the bottom of Crystal back to the top of the Crystal (which would dramatically reduce the lap times down CPR Ridge).

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/fa...owl_rpt_f1.pdf

[mr_pretzel]

Any chance of expansion now years later?

[paulster2626]

The cheap fucks cancelling the midstation really messed up the overall vibe of the place, and I've only heard that RCR is either just as cheap or worse. But I kind of like how the current lift system is basically giving you the middle finger just like the hikes and gnarly terrain. It all sort of flows together to create a rugged, unique experience.

But if I had a billion dollars, I'd just build another lift up from the middle of the mountain to Ozone or something, wind permitting. Or T2, maybe.

The best most favourite spot there of mine is T1, and I like how it really can't support a lift up there (kinda narrow, I think) as it keeps the riff-raff out. But eventually I'll be too old for that hike and will bitch and complain.

[huckbucket]

I actually think this guy did a nice job of capturing what it's like to ski there.

[paulster2626]

I actually think this guy did a nice job of capturing what it's like to ski there.

I've been subscribing to this guy for a couple years now. Super nice dude who just loves to get out and ski and have fun. Glad to see his subs are rising.

[dufferdan]

The cheap fucks cancelling the midstation really messed up the overall vibe of the place, and I've only heard that RCR is either just as cheap or worse. But I kind of like how the current lift system is basically giving you the middle finger just like the hikes and gnarly terrain. It all sort of flows together to create a rugged, unique experience.

But if I had a billion dollars, I'd just build another lift up from the middle of the mountain to Ozone or something, wind permitting. Or T2, maybe.

The best most favourite spot there of mine is T1, and I like how it really can't support a lift up there (kinda narrow, I think) as it keeps the riff-raff out. But eventually I'll be too old for that hike and will bitch and complain.

It isn’t the cheap effs at RCR, it is all on one man, Murray Edwards, the owner of RCR. He is hyper hands on, even from his home in Switzerland. I have heard he mandates that he has to approve every expenditure over something like $5,000 (could be 10k or 15k, but still ludicrously low for such an operation.)

While the mid-station issue was before RCR time, the Dutch company that developed KH and put in the gondola vetoed the midstation which was originally contemplated. They did the absolute minimum they had to do to fulfill their investment obligations after building the PEI bridge. (There were associated investment obligations involved in being awarded the contract to build in Canada)

Part of the problem is it is still challenging to sell the real estate you need to sell as a resort in order to be able to build things like lifts. It is my understanding there are challenges at KH in terms of wastewater treatment and water supply, as well as runoff issues making construction problematic, though I think those issues exist in every mountain setting.




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