Our Canadian Roadtrip Adventure: Red Resort

We were up early on Thursday as we needed to visit Red Resort, just over an hours drive from the Hume Hotel in Nelson.

Our hotel in Nelson really is lovely. It's bang central in the middle of the town and is one of the nicest hotels we've ever been to. In some respects like living in a by-gone age, a lot of history associated with the building and a lot of that history has been preserved. It really is grand, without being ostentatious. Our room is impeccably clean and spacious, we are being spoilt on this holiday.

And breakfast is to die for, plenty of it, plenty of choice, waiter services and everything cooked to perfection ... simply delicious and no better way to set up up for a day on the mountain.

But that was about as good as the day got. As we were leaving Nelson there was moisture in the air, turning to rain as we got closer to Red Resort. We were hopeful as we climbed the road up to the ski area that the rain would turn to snow, but it wasn't to be. We had a few showers throughout the day, most of which fell as rain or very sleety snow. The net effect of this was really damp sticky, heavy, ugly, difficult snow that was mostly unpleasant. There were the odd patches that were acceptable, and the very odd patch that was actually good, but in the main it turned into a bit of a damp squib. What a shame.

But we did get to see enough of the resort to realise and appreciate what it could offer when better conditions prevailed. Superb terrain, something for all levels, some serious steep pitches (I managed just one and even that was rather horrible concrete snow most of the way .. just not enjoyable) and some lovely cruisy groomers (pistes for us Euro types) .. and at all times spectacular scenery, with skiing between the trees just as common place as anywhere else in this neck of the woods.

So, wy did we have to go to Red Resort and why did we? Well it all boils down to our plans for later in the holiday when we visit the areas of Revelstoke, Panorama and Lake Louise. All these areas, along with Red Resort (and a few others) have a shared lift pass arrangement which make use of a discount card called the Lake Louise Plus card. These need to be bought before December and if you live in Canada or the US of A then you can have these posted out to you. But no such luck if you live in old Blightly. You have buy them from the resort where you will use them first, so we had to make this decision a long time back and decided on Red Resort as it was the first opportunity on our schedule to pick them up. So this means we were stuck with having to go to Red, even though it isn't skiing brilliantly at the moment.

It wasn't all bad, far from it, in fact I'm probably doing the day an injustice and maybe being too harsh. We had some great times, a fantastic little lunch in a tent with rain pouring down on the canopy, and as we headed back to resort for an untypically early finish, we realised the conditions at the bottom of the hill were better than up top. So we lapped a few more times on the lower groomers before setting back off for Nelson.

Gorgeous breakfasts at the Hume Hotel

Pickibg up our Lake Louise Cards, the lady at Red Resort guest services needed to give us a Canadian address as their "system" wouldn't accept a UK one. Who'd work in I.T. hey? So this is our address if anyone asks!