Big White Ski Resort

Big White is located 56 kilometres southeast of Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. It is the second largest resort in British Columbia after Whistler-Blackcomb. It has a central village which is comprised of accommodation, eateries, bars and shops. It is the sister resort of Silver Star Mountain Resort. The village is 1,755m above sea level.

The mountain summit is 2,319m and has 15 lifts. The vertical drop is 777m with 750cm of annual snowfall. The total resort area is 7,355 acres with 2,765 acres patrolled. With 38 acres of night skiing, Big White has western Canada’s largest resort night skiing area.

Big White Accommodations

Big White has a variety of places to stay when visiting one of British Columbia’s largest resorts. Big White offers vacation rental property by owners, agencies and hotels. Accommodations in Big White can range from small condo’s to large luxury cabins / cottages. Staying in Big White in one of the owner-direct accommodations has its advantages as privacy with the full spread of amenities is most appealing to tourists and locals who stay in Big White.
Before booking an accommmodations in Big White and your vacation rental, view the listings of the available Big White accommodations for rent during the winter ski season and summer mountain biking season.

There is currently four village hotels, 25 condo or town house complexes, 244 vacation homes and two hostels. Big White is also unique in that all accommodation, with no exceptions, is ski-in, ski-out. There are 15,000 beds in the village, to be increased to 18,000. It is all of a generally high standard, but ranges from standard to extremem luxury. Big White accommodations are exceptionally good value at Big White.

Snowboarding

Big White recently built a TELUS Park in the 2004/2005 season. It features an Olympic sized 500-foot long Super pipe with 17-foot transitional walls along with a standard sized half-pipe. The park also has a skier/border cross course and beginner through to advanced rails and hits.

Beyond the extensive park facilities, snowboarders are extremely well served by the large area of lightly gladed powder skiing at the top of the mountain, and runs are also well suited to snowboarders, with flatspots rare, and many natural rolls and kicks for jumps.

Gem Lake

Gem Lake is located on the western side of Big White and is a high-speed detachable quad chair. The Falcon and Powder Chairs, two and three person lifts respectively, are nearby, offering the skier a large number of runs to choose from. The Gem Lake lift is often more windy than the east side lifts, but offers the largest single-lift vertical drop at the hill at 710 metres. It has a small lodge and parking lot at its base; the base of the Gem Lake Express is quite distant from the Village area.

There is a tendency for tourists to ski more on the east side, nearer the base village and accommodation, while locals from Kelowna and other nearby towns might ski Gem Lake more than tourists - perhaps simply because the Gem lake base area is closer by around 10 minutes to the nearest towns (Kelowna etc.), where most locals come from. This is hardly noticeable though, and doesn’t change the skiing experience - apart from at peak season times, when lift lines up to 10 minutes may accumulate at certain times of day, at certain lifts, the resort is blissfully crowd free. And even during these peak times, the pistes themselves remain open and uncrowded.

Activities

There are many activities to experience at Big White either during the day or at night when staying in Big White accommodations. These activities include the Mega Snow Coaster, which was once the largest tubing park in North America, snowmobile tours, sleigh riding, snowshoeing, and ice skating.

The resort also hosts a number of family aimed events (Big White was awarded North America’s best family resort in 2003 by The Good Skiing and Boarding Guide 2003) such as carnival nights and Tim Hortons’s Cruise the Blues.

Dining

Big White currently has 17 restaurants, cafes and delis. This figure includes 8 lounges/bars. There is also a small grocery store and liquor store in the village for those who wish to stay in and cook. Guests staying for periods longer than a week sometimes purchase groceries from larger stores in Kelowna as the store on the mountain can be pricey.

Ski and Snowboard School

Big White has 100 qualified instructors, offering classes for all ages and all skill levels. The ski-school is renowned for high quality tuition, and the children’s programs regularly receive awards from a wide range of magazines and websites.