Image Credit: CFJC Today / Kent Simmonds

By Jill Sperling

SUN PEAKS

Sun Peaks Resort optimistic about season after successful opening weekend

Nov 25, 2020 | 4:08 PM

SUN PEAKS —The skiers and snowboarders have returned to Sun Peaks.

Despite several operational changes due to the ongoing pandemic, opening weekend was the best yet for the ski resort.

While many indoor activities and group sports have had to stop due to COVID-19, skiing and snowboarding remain safe activities. On opening day at Sun Peaks Saturday (Nov. 21), an eagerness to get out was reflected in the number of people at the hill.

“Saturday, I think it’s fair to say it was the best opening day in the history of the resort,” said Chief Marketing Officer Aidan Kelly. “We opened all three mountains, we had more than 100 runs open, we had 20 centimetres of snow two days before we opened and we had every single chair lift opening, which has never happened in the history of the resort before.”

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Despite a positive opening weekend experience, Sun Peaks is bracing itself for more pandemic-related challenges as the season wears on.

“We obviously have some orders and restrictions in place right now through December 7 where it’s strongly encouraged and recommended that nobody is traveling right now,” Kelly said, “so that’s having a significant financial impact for sure. We are growing quite concerned about that.”

Robert O’Toole owns Vertical Cafe with his wife. He says opening weekend brought plenty of people through his business and even mid-week traffic has been satisfactory.

“It’s a little quieter during the week this week, but still as or better than we saw this time last year,” he said. “Positive so far — knock on wood.”

O’Toole attributes some of the success to opening week conditions and a desire to get out of the house.

“You can go snowshoeing instead of regular hiking, if you’re not a skier there’s lots of things to do. We’re seeing that,” O’Toole said. “We saw lots of people on opening weekend who weren’t even skiers or snowboarders who were just up, a lot of them from Kamloops, just to get out of town and get out of the house and be in the outdoors, which is probably the safest place to be.”

Sun Peaks has a number of protocols in place to keep guests safe and has even limited the number of available season and day passes.

“The most important thing we’re trying to get across to people this year is plan ahead,” Kelly said. “It’s a very different world where normally in the ski industry you can just rock up to the ticket window on a Saturday morning and buy a ticket and go skiing but now you need to plan ahead.”