Revelstoke is BC's newest big-noise investment. A few years ago it was just a small town on the Trans-Canadian highway with a local hill plus cat and heli-based riding. I knew it as a place the Greyhound stopped on the way from Calgary to Kamloops, and a CMH helicopter base. Two years ago that all changed, with the cat operator selling out to what is now "Revelstoke Mountain Resort" (RMR), who also picked up the local heli operator (Selkirk Tangiers). They inherited a large steep hill, which with the lift extensions built for the 2008/9 season currently has the largest vertical in North America.
location, location
Revelstoke is pretty much half-way between Calgary and Vancouver, the major international airports nearby. "Nearby" is relative - Canada's a big place, and in this case it's about six hours or so, worse if you're using public transport. This year it took me 22 hours to get from Whistler to Revelstoke; that's not really a fair indicator as there was a huge storm closing a couple of nearby airports (Kelowna, Kamloops), but it gives you a clue that Revelstoke isn't the easiest place to get to. I regularly fly to Kamloops, and Revelstoke's a few hours by Greyhound across the Trans-Canadian from there. Alternatively you can approach from Kelowna, which is about four hours and one bus change away. There is an airport in Revelstoke, but at the moment at least I don't know of any direct flights shipping tourists in there. It's quite hard to get to Revelstoke.
The good news is that Revelstoke's in the Monashees, on the right side of the mountains. Golden's Whitetooth was a nice local hill, and Kicking Horse is no doubt a fine year-round resort, but the bottom line is that there's more snow on the left hand side of those mountains than the right, and the lines are generally steeper. Even standing in the main street in Revelstoke you can see classic Monashees steep tree lines and understand why there are so many heli operators nearby. Revelstoke's extremely well placed to provide the right terrain and the right snow. If you can get there.
the resort
There isn't really a resort just yet (2008-2009), but they're working on it. At the base of the hill are a couple of blocks of flats, the nucleus of what's going to be an accommodation and shopping centre for the hill. I'm not sure when it's going to be ready; it's already behind schedule and the global economy has already taken out the original developers. The lift system descends to here, but the main resort base is actually higher up the hillside, where the base lodge is.
The lodge is higher up, where the main car parks are. The lodge is apparently an extension of an older building, but it looks great and smells of new wood and coffee. The coffee is excellent and the lodge has a small-resort feel, which I like. There's a single building providing all resort services, which gives you a feel for the scale of the ancilliary amenities. Looking up from the lodge you see a lot of hill: there's nothing wrong with the scale of that.
In practice at the moment everyone stays in the town and drives to the hill - it's 6km or about 10 minutes along reasonably clear roads with minor switchbacks. If you don't have a car there's a shuttle bus, although you'll probably find yourself sitting amongst the local kids if you don't drive at the moment.
The resort is still under-developed, with just a few lifts exploiting part of the Mount Mackenzie (2,456m) peak. As you'd expect here the runs are in or through trees; the glades here should be excellent, although conditions when I was there weren't condcucive to checking them out. The main descents are steep and black, although traffic was sufficiently low when I visited that there were few bumps to run. The longer runs are crossed by cat roads; at the moment that's ok as there are few people about and launching off the roads at speed is the obvious move. If it ever gets Whistler-style busy there will be speed cops and worse on these junctions though - green runs crossing black isn't good.
At the moment everything funnels down to the lodge, where the bunny hill is. This wasn't a problem at all when I was there as the minus 35 temperatures (I kid you not) kept the crowds down to those of us able to ride with seven layers on. If it does get busy, they will need to redesing things somehow though.
triple play?
RMR makes a big play from having Cat/ Heli and resort riding all from the one place. So successful is this that Whistler's trying to respond with a similar pitch.
In practice there are many places which have all three types of riding, but few customers who in my opinion can sensibly make much use of them. From the heli-boarder's perspective, having a resort handy is good for down days, but bad because you may have to ride with novices. Cat skiing works well with a resort as the cats move pretty slowly anyway. Revelstoke is a good location for helicopter and cat boarding however, with several operators running from the town including none-RMR-owned Eagle Pass, who run an A-star (4 seats) and have fewer down-days than anyone else I know. The snow's the best Monashee 5% stuff, the views are great and the heli well maintained.
the town
The town is typical of many back-country BC places and provides all the expected amenities: a tasteful sex shop; a few bars; and a "folk dancing" club. Downtown the food is fairly basic, but there's excellent fine dining to be had at "The Great White North" a short drive away. Down town, opposite "the ballet" is a new bowling alley/ bar/ snowboard shop owned by the local Burton Rep.
The town's quiet, especially when it's minus 35 outside.
More images from Revelstoke.
summary
Revelstoke's a great place - it's got everything you need: snow, trees, steep hills, and several ways to get up them. It's not really a "resort" in the sense of "destination resort", although it may well get there in time. I think the best may be now, before they really exploit the potential commerically. If you get a dump here there are so few people around that it's going to last for days, days of near-heli turns in steep trees. And excellent coffee.