When you have been used to travelling with just one skiing partner, making your own travel and accommodation arrangements and enjoying total independence with your skiing holidays for a number of years, the idea of picking up a group tour is a little unsettling. What if you don’t like the accommodation? What if the snow at the chosen mountain is no good? What if you don’t like the other people on the tour?

However, when a solo trip loomed, a group tour looked like an option worth trying. If loss of independence is a reason not to tour with a group, then flexibility and choice would have to be two reasons to offset this. After a little bit of researching the options, I settled on Summit Ski Tours.

Summit is an Australian company that operates in the interior of British Columbia, Canada. A favourable exchange rate makes Canada a logical choice, and BC’s interior generally escapes both the heavy snow so common on the west coast (Whistler/Blackcomb, Mount Washington) and the –30°C temperatures often experienced in Alberta (Lake Louise, Sunshine). With multiple tour dates and variety of mountains, they seemed a reasonable choice and turned out to be a very good one. The tours are all 15 nights and include accommodation, ground transportation, lift tickets, plus full mountain guiding.

And so it was that I found myself with a bunch of strangers at Kelowna Airport, waiting for a couple more strangers to fly in. I took this opportunity to chat with a few of my soon-to-be skiing buddies. Among them, there was a sales rep and a construction worker from New Zealand, an architect from Sydney and a couple of police officers from Victoria. There were ages ranging from the early twenties to the late fifties, there were skiers and snowboarders of both sexes, and there were abilities ranging from intermediate to pretty good: All in all, a quite diverse group, and not large.

Tour operator, Jeff Swan, who is one of the guides himself, says this is by design. “I want to place emphasis on individual attention, so each tour is restricted to 18 participants, aiming for no more than 6 per guide.” A benefit of small groups became apparent later in the trip.

From the airport, our first stop was to purchase food. Although there were dining out options at Silver Star, everyone opted to put in to a food kitty. There was no pressure to do the group thing, but I wanted to make the effort to be part of the group. I had not done anything like this before. At the end of a hard day’s skiing, the last thing I feel like doing is making dinner and washing dishes. As it turned out, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying the change from the norm. Automatic dishwashers were a big help!

From the supermarket, we hit the ski shops. Mostly, we just topped up on things like thermals and wax, but a few of the group couldn’t resist prices on hardware that was so much cheaper than Down Under, or models that weren’t available in Australia. Two hours in and already the plastic was taking a beating!

Silver Star has a quaint little village. Although there is a large variety of sizes and designs of buildings, all the architecture conforms to what are obviously local authority encumbrances. Looking around at the purples and greens and pinks, there is a feeling of being in a western Candyland, but it works. Sort of kitsch with class. The vacation home we stayed in was a jaw-dropper. Fully equipped with all mod cons, it was clean, spacious, with a to-die-for location. Sliding to the side of a run accessible from three directions, we stepped out of our skis/boards only two metres from the back door, (which was two flights of stairs from the rooftop jacuzzi.) In the morning, the nearest lift was only 30 metres away - downhill. True ski in, ski out.

On the first night we had an orientation, with Jeff explaining the way things generally work, and handing out goodies like sunscreen, tour T-shirts and whistles. The whistles were a brilliant idea. Most of the groups got in amongst the trees at some time on the tour. It is so easy to lose sight of others in the group when tree skiing. Once that happens, the trees and the snow act as sound insulation. Voices just don’t carry. It is possible to be less than 10 metres from someone and have no idea they are there. (Especially with the amount of snow we had on this tour.) The sound of the whistles carries a lot further. They were our security blanket in case of trouble. It immediately became our own rule that we had to wear them at all times and had to blow them if we heard another whistle, no matter where we were. They proved to be very handy in locating group members in crowded saloons.

Silver Star’s terrain is divided. The Putnam Creek face has quite a high proportion of black runs, with its strength being long, sustained pitches such as White Elephant. Some of these are groomed, many aren’t. As it snowed the night of our arrival, there was powder to be had on the first day. With no snow over the next four days, however, some mean bump runs developed. The bumps were lovely and soft, but they were big and they just kept going. The Vance Creek face, although having some short but fun black runs, is predominantly kinder, gentler terrain. Attridge Access, running west along a ridge, provides wonderful sunset views down the valley and is an excellent choice for a mellow last run of the day.

Silver Star also has some recently opened out-of-bounds slopes. They are unpatrolled, and signs warn that all rescue costs will be charged to the person being rescued. These start at a minimum C$500. Jeff made it clear to everyone that although we could go out of bounds at any of the resorts on the tour, none of the guides would be doing so. We would be on our own.

Although individual attention was a feature of these tours, safety was a higher priority as far as he was concerned. After four blue-sky days of skiing, it was time to move on to Big White. With the opening of the Gem Lake Express lift, Big White has become a large resort, with over 2000 acres of skiable terrain and 2500 feet of vertical (1600 feet available during night skiing).

Our accommodation was in 3-bedroom condos, which were located next to a ski run near the heart of the village. In the evening, we would sit in the outside spa watching the snow fall out of a black sky, while the heads of night skiers could be seen moving across a snow drift like ducks in a shooting gallery. Every so often, a snowboarder would hit the drift to give us a full view. This was usually followed by the sounds of an unsuccessful landing.

During our stay, the Gem Lake and Falcon chairs were closed on occasions due to poor visibility, which dramatically reduced the area available for skiing but didn’t reduce the fun. When in poor visibility, head for the trees! Big White boasts tremendous off-piste skiing/boarding, both in tight stands and open glades. These open glades are suitable for anyone of intermediate standard – in some cases, lower intermediate. The Ridge Rocket, Bullet and Black Forest Chairs provide access to the most sheltered terrain. They are all high-speed quads. This, along with a paucity of crowds, meant that lift lines were minimal.

Our last day, with good visibility, was spent largely laying tracks in the Cliff area, a wide-open bowl of blacks and double blacks untouched for 3 days. Accessed via a T-bar, the bowl spills down to a frozen lake, necessitating a hike out at the bottom. The untracked snow made the 5-minute hike worthwhile. From here, the tabletops of one of the mountain’s three terrain parks formed part of our regular route back to the lifts.

It snowed the first four nights we were there, providing an ever-welcome top up. At the end of each day, it was still possible to find untracked snow off-piste. On our fifth night, we all ate out at Snowshoe Sam’s, a rocking little bar with plenty of attitude. The food was good and the company better, but what made it memorable were the Gunbarrel Coffees. These potent concoctions took a few minutes each to prepare and were worth it for the sheer entertainment value of seeing them made. Flaming spirits and liqueurs introduced to the glass down a double-barrelled shotgun commanded everyone’s attention.

The day we left was cloudless, and we bemoaned the fact that we had to leave. Most of us, though, knew that our bodies needed a little rest, and with the arrival of the weekend, the crowds had flocked in from nearby (50 mins) Kelowna, so we didn’t complain too loudly. Besides, we had heard from our guides about our next stop and were all looking forward to getting there.

The only place that features in all of Summit’s tours is Red Mountain. We stayed in nearby Rossland, 5 minutes away by free hotel shuttle. (From 2000, accommodation at Red will be on-mountain.) Rossland has a few nice places to eat out, but is not famous for its nightlife. Red Mountain is actually quite small – only about 1400 feet of vertical. Most of the skiing takes place on adjacent Granite Mountain, providing 2900 vertical feet. Even so, the skiing area is not large. The base lodge is old and, well, ordinary. There is the on-mountain Paradise Lodge, but this, too, is small and basic. Most of the lift towers have no safety padding. It is as if the area opera tors are saying, “You know it’s solid and you know it isn’t going to move. Don’t ski into it, go round.” There are only 5 lifts. One is a beginner’s T-bar. Another is an access lift. At Red, “high-speed” is a term reserved exclusively for things moving downhill, not up. And the locals wouldn’t have it any other way.

Red is a mountain which skis much bigger than many larger ski areas. This is so because virtually all the mountain in-bounds is skiable. Apart from a couple of cliff areas (not out of bounds, just posted with a caution sign), you can just point your skis and go. Beginners don’t have a lot of area, although they can easily handle Long Squaw, giving them an 8 km top-to-bottom run. Competent intermediates can also go top-to-bottom via Buffalo Ridge, Tom’s Run and Jake’s Slope. However, the main area for intermediate runs is the Paradise area. Here, there is a blend of cut trails and gladed runs. Mini Bowls and Meadows, with plenty of big gaps, provide a confidence-boosting introduction to tree skiing. We skied knee deep powder in the Paradise area all morning on the second day then left the area just for a change, not because it was tracked out.

Overall, though, Red would have to be described as an advanced skier’s/boarder’s mountain. The choices for this level are wide and varied. There is the double black Link’s Run directly under the main lift, with a drop-off entry and plenty of jumps and hits on the way down for the Warren Miller wannabe’s. Link’s turns into Centre Star for a bump run down to the bottom of the lift.

What makes Red stand out in most people’s memories, however - and provides endless stories around the bar - are the trees. Powderfields, Orchards and Paleface in one direction, Doug’s Run, Needles and The Slides in another. On many occasions, short uphill hikes are necessary to access these runs, but no one complains. It’s part of the fun and adds to the anticipation. This was where Jeff's insistence on small groups paid dividends. Knowing that everyone wanted to make their own tracks, our guides would gather us at the entry to a band of trees and say, “Spread out. Head generally down the draw and soon you’ll come out on to Long Squaw. Wait for everyone there.” Thus we would split up and make our own way. Sure enough, things turned out as we expected. Even so, it would take a few minutes to gather everyone together again. With larger groups, this would have been too time-consuming and probably unworkable.

Four days is simply not enough time to ski all the runs at Red. Not even all the named ones. It is enough time, though, to discover that a high-speed quad is not really necessary. I, for one, was thankful for the extra rest time provided by a slow old triple. It is enough time to understand why the locals like things just the way they are. And it is enough time to realise why Red is on every one of Summit’s tours.

Having previously skied at each of the mountains on this tour, I was able to directly compare the drawbacks and benefits of group travel as opposed to individual travel. In the end, I felt that the tour was over too soon and that I was sorry to be leaving new friends. And that, I suppose, is a true measure of the success of any tour.

Summit’s fully guided tours are open to both skiers and boarders of intermediate standard or higher. Two of their tours have only boarding guides. This naturally means that they run from a boarder’s perspective. All of the guides are either instructors or patrollers.

Apart from Silver Star, Big White and Red Mountain, Summit Ski & Board Tours in Canada also visit Apex Mountain, Fernie Alpine Resort, Kicking Horse and Castle Mountain.

This Article was printed in Ski Extra (Australia)

The author, Tim Ellis was a freelance journalist on a Summit Tour of Canada.