Final day of the ski season at Big White Ski Resort

As we move further into spring, our favourite winter pastimes are put on ice.

For many, that includes skiing and snowboarding at Big White Ski Resort and it was a bittersweet day as some went up to the hill for one last ride.

Monday caps off what resort officials say has been one of the most successful seasons in the resort’s history.

“The weather’s been fantastic, we had a wonderful March. I know it’s nice and dry in the valley, but we had some beautiful sunny days up here. Spring break was fantastic. Even on our closing day, just after Easter weekend, we have some beautiful champagne powder falling from the sky,” said Trevor Hanna, vice-president of hospitality at Big White Ski Resort.

Moving past the pandemic, the resort was able to welcome more international travellers this ski season.

“Australia in particular and then everything out of the east. The connections to and from YLW have really helped as air traffic goes, so do a lot of the interior resorts so we’ve been very fortunate with that,” said Hanna.

Visitors from across the world took full advantage of the lifted restrictions and made their way to Big White.

“We do an exchange here for 10 months and in Germany, we can just go skiing once or twice a year and being here like every weekend is amazing,” said Nina Bartsch.

Bartsch and exchange student Katharina Wiegand spent over 50 days at Big White during their time in the Okanagan.

“In Germany, we had a lot of restrictions and now just to be free and do everything again is pretty nice,” Wiegand said.

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Those up at the hill Monday all had a similar feeling about the season coming to an end.

“I’m really sad because I really had a really great time here,” said Oliver Seymour.

Many enjoyed the fresh powder on the hill that morning.

“It’s heartbreaking because it’s been such a great season, we had so much snow and just want to keep going,” said Ruah Friesen.

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Although snow is still in the forecast at Big White, staff say keeping the resort open longer is simply not possible.

“We’re getting a lot of questions about why we can’t stay open but it’s more about what we need to do now to get ready for our summer season than it is about the winter season,” said Hanna.

“We have a lot of capital projects that we’re gonna get underway that will basically take a lot of our energy and time in the next couple months.”

Big White is aiming to welcome riders in for the mountain biking season on June 29th.