Grooming crews have been working on the slopes around the clock in the week ahead of opening day this season at Sun Peaks.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Sun Peaks Resort

As skiers and snowboarders await opening day at Sun Peaks Resort near Kamloops, there's an orchestra of workers who've been working for months preparing for that day.

The ski resort has a workforce of more than 600 people this season and a quarter of them are permanent staff. Although it has a bike park during the summer months, for some, preparation for the next winter starts as soon as the previous one ends.

From ski patrol and grooming crews to mechanics and ski technicians, the resort machine started gearing up months ago.

Sun Peaks is one of several resorts across the province all planning to open the same weekend including Big White near Kelowna. Though the Kamloops-area resort pushed back its opening date by a week, it means every chair will be running Saturday, Nov. 23, which isn't common.

A lack of snow at the beginning of last season meant only a few lifts were open at the start of the season, but all 13 will be spinning this weekend.

With 13 lifts on three mountains, the newest will ease access to Mount Tod's western face after four years without a lift. Until 2020 it was served by a T-bar, which was decommissioned to make way for the new four-person West Bowl Express.

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While it returns access to the West Bowl area, it also brings changes for crews, like the ski patrol.

The patrol team, led by Pip Albrow, added two more people to their ranks so they can get to emergencies in any area of the resort within minutes. While the West Bowl was always within bounds, there will be more riders there and more potential for emergencies.

Ski patrol director Pip Albrow (second from right) with members of the patrol team in the Sun Peaks Resort medical clinic.

(LEVI LANDRY / iNFOnews.ca)

At their operations centre, dispatchers direct patrollers to emergencies and injured skiers are brought back to where there are several medical bays inside. Albrow said it's one of the best medical centres among North American ski resorts, which is also closely connected to the local doctor's office.

A crew of 40 patrollers has been checking snow conditions for the over 140 runs at Sun Peaks for the past two weeks, while also checking avalanche conditions. Testing and explosive controls have been going everyday in the lead up to the resort's opening. Although the snow base is still building up, Albrow said the work starts early because because avalanche risk is greater before skiers start packing it down. 

"Right now areas like Headwalls (a Mount Tod black diamond run) is just a big avalanche path because it hasn't had skier compaction to break up the layer," Albrow said.

They initially planned for more avalanche control come Friday and even Saturday morning due to upcoming snowfall, but Albrow said that depends on just how much snow they get. The patrol and grooming teams may be watching the forecast closer than eager skiers.

The patrol team is one of the later crews to start preparations for the season. Perhaps unexpectedly, one of the almost year-round jobs is grooming. While Sun Peaks runs the bike park in the summer, a single machine is retrofitted to trim growth on many of its runs, meaning they can open with a lower snowpack without grasses and shrubs sticking through.

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Slopes manager Seth Worthen plows snow at the base, while several other machines are scattered around the resort.

(LEVI LANDRY / iNFOnews.ca)

Slopes manager Seth Worthen oversees a winter team that drives ten groomers. Once the season starts, they rotate in two shifts, plowing and smoothing out runs day and night. In the week ahead of opening day, however, it's three shifts and the machines are running 24 hours per day.

On Thursday, he focused on the very base of the resort, where riders funnel into the village. Snowmaking machines are blowing powder from the bottom to halfway up, but Worthen's task for most of the day was moving enough snow to high-traffic areas near the lodge.

"Every hour counts," Worthen said. "We're getting there... (Mount) Morrisey is set and read to go, we're working on Sundance, then up top there's 80-plus centimetres."

The night shift will groom at least 300 hectares each night. The entire resort, including glades and areas typically not touched by machines, includes more than 1,700 hectares that can be ridden.

They work closely with the patrol team, who ride every run to finalize which ones can be opened, while occasionally working with resort restaurant staff to carry deliveries to the mid-mountain Sunburst Bar.

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Steve Trenholm (middle) manages a five-person team of heavy duty mechanics.

(LEVI LANDRY / iNFOnews.ca)

Throughout the entire offseason, mechanics maintain the grooming machines while millwrights and mechanics work on the lifts. It's work meant to keep equipment running as long as possible, but surprises are inevitable and the shops are busy all year. The lift maintenance crew had much of their focus on the new West Bowl chair for its final safety checks.

A renovated rental area was also getting its final touches. It hosts around 700 sets of skis, more than are needed, but it ensures riders can get the right size.

Retail and rental director Brian Capper said the main rental centre is newly renovated just in time for the 2024/2025 season.

(LEVI LANDRY / iNFOnews.ca)

Perhaps not every rider that uses rental gear needs lessons, but the Sun Peaks sports school does host one of the largest workforces on the mountain.

Sports school director Ian Logan, originally of Scotland, employs 140 employees who teach children as young as three years old to adults. They focus on one-on-one lessons or small classes of just a few riders. They teach many skill levels too, and Logan said many tourists will arrange lessons to, at least in part, have a guide to show them the resort's different riding areas.

"One of our internal training goals is to make sure a guest has a better day with you than they had without you," Logan said. "That's kind of the goal."

The new West Bowl Express will carry its first riders ever at Sun Peaks on Nov. 23, 2024.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Sun Peaks

Hiring for many of the winter's seasonal crews starts in the summer, human resources partner Jen Dekker said. Although there are 471 seasonal employees this season, she said they try to keep as many of the same employees each year. More than a third were re-hired from the last year.

The resort's workforce can be split almost evenly into thirds among locals from the Sun Peaks and Kamloops areas, Canadians more broadly and those from foreign countries. Like many other BC mountain resorts, foreign workers hail mostly from Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

As of Nov. 22, the resort had 31 centimetres of new snow within the past week with a few centimetres falling that day. The opening day forecast calls for clouds and temperatures just below 0 Celsius.

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