May 21, 2011 | Tips from Travellers >
Silver Star Mountain Resort, Skiing & Snowboarding
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SILVER STAR, CANADA
Librans are partial to being surrounded by beauty. In a ski resort my preference lies in surrounds that have a theme (European, colonial) or reflect 'days gone by' (Silver mining, Copper mining etc). Failing that, bright primary colours used in buildings tend to inspire, stimulate and complement the green and white theme nature provides as a backdrop. Welcome to Silver Star, British Columbia. Think Fairyland.
WORKING-IN WITH BIG WHITE
Two hours up the Vernon-bound road from Big White lies Silver Star. Fantastically the Big White season pass can be used at Silver Star, which makes for a great bargain when you're planning to ski for more than 10 days. Two thousand five hundred vertical feet, 115 runs, you won't get bored.
The ski school systems are synchronised, when you walk in on day one all you need to do is explain that your child was a 'Racing Raccoon' at Big White and they get straight into it. One of my pet peeves is when you need to explain over and over what ski skills your child has achieved, this can sometimes mean the week is spent skiing basic slopes when they were working up to blacks. An expensive, annoying pain in the what-zit. Luckily, Silver Star is a fine example of how to run a ski school, take note.
THE SHOPPING VILLAGE
This village would be perfect for my mum and the sooner she gets to experience it the better. Stores with baubles and trinkets, wall hangings to decorate condos, thick top quality wool jumpers with snow flake designs on them followed by a hot chocolate by the fireside. Nice one. The targeted demographic down the main strip quite clearly points to the older generation, but what a generation flocks it is. It was Silver Star that turned me to see the merits of settling down and taking roots one day in one ski resort (rather than traverse the ski world like a ski wanderer as I do, sampling the wares and delights of each). This finer point deserves some elaboration and for this I dedicate a special paragraph.
BOOM BABY BOOM
The Silver Star Baby Boomers are inspiring, somebody forgot to tell them they're not thirty anymore. You see them on the steepest, bumpiest slopes, they're not lost, they skied there deliberately and they're smiling like Cheshire cats. Press your nose up against The Bakery window at 10am or noon and the place is packed out like Rockerfeller Square on New Years Eve. Forget tennis on Tuesdays, these bunnies pass you in packs out on the runs, laughing and living it up. Sheesh. Have we got a thing to learn. We stayed with an awesome couple in their sixties, I sent them an email at 8am, to say we'd arrive there that evening. They didn't get the message because they'd left for their day's skiing. And they were on their sixth or eighth week of skiing in a row.